Europe's strategic dilemmas

O lento progresso no domínio da cooperação militar reflete um problema mais profundo: a ausência de uma cultura estratégica europeia partilhada. Paralelamente, a presença de constrangimentos em matéria de recursos imprime à Europa uma maior urgência para cooperar. Na última década, o ambiente no qual a Europa opera mudou radicalmente – mudança esta que a Europa não conseguiu acompanhar. A evolução dos acontecimentos veio comprometer os pressupostos nos quais a Estratégia Europeia de Segurança, acordada em 2003, se baseou. Os europeus carecem de uma nova estratégia global, necessitando de fazer escolhas sobre o nível a que pretendem influenciar e como. Uma ilustração da tendência europeia para evitar realizar escolhas complexas reside no conceito de “parcerias estratégicas” – o quadro europeu de referência conceptual de relacionamento com potências líderes no século XXI. Se algo resta da aspiração da UE para se afirmar como “potência normativa” este conceito deve refletir uma distinção de política externa entre democracias e não-democracias.

Attitudes to animal dilemmas: an exploratory comparison between Mexican and English children

This research explores some of the factors that influence the relations about empathy and /or rejection that children establish towards some animal species. The role that school has within the social context in these dynamics was considered. Attitudes of young children (aged 7 to 9) from Mexico and England towards specific animal species, examining attitudinal differences not only between cultures, and educational systems, but between species have been compared. Ecological dilemmas involving animals are used as a method to analyse children’s constructions of the environment in the field of moral development and conservation. Children expressed more negative attitudes towards spiders and snakes, than towards monkeys and birds. Although these attitudes in themselves are not surprising, the material in this study provides new information on how young children construct their moral ideas on conservation matters through the used of ecological dilemmas. Children’s reactions vary according to culture, experience, affiliation for a particular animal and school ethos.

Measuring problem gambling in Indigenous communities : an Australian response to the research dilemmas

This paper examines evidence relating to harmful consequences of gambling in the Australian Indigenous population and highlights the failure of research to date to define problem gambling from Indigenous perspectives or to tailor research processes to accommodate the cultural beliefs and experiences of Indigenous groups. It advocates for the development of a unique set of measures to assess the function of problem gambling aspects, negative impacts, trends, risks and protective factors. This would be informed by more recent qualitative studies into gambling that are specific to Indigenous communities. Additionally, this paper argues the need to adapt and validate a commonly applied assessment tool, such as the Canadian Problem Gambling Index, to monitor prevalence of problem gambling over time. Targeted research into Indigenous people's experiences of gambling will facilitate the development of culturally based responses and interventions into problem gambling.

Organ trafficking and transplant tourism: the role of global professional ethical standards - the 2008 declaration of Istanbul

By 2005, human organ trafficking, commercialization, and transplant tourism had become a prominent and pervasiveinfluence on transplantation therapy. The most common source of organs was impoverished people in India,Pakistan, Egypt, and the Philippines, deceased organ donors in Colombia, and executed prisoners in China. Inresponse, in May 2008, The Transplantation Society and the International Society of Nephrology developed theDeclaration of Istanbul on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism consisting of a preamble, a set of principles, anda series of proposals. Promulgation of the Declaration of Istanbul and the formation of the Declaration of IstanbulCustodian Group to promote and uphold its principles have demonstrated that concerted, strategic, collaborative,and persistent actions by professionals can deliver tangible changes. Over the past 5 years, the Declaration of IstanbulCustodian Group organized and encouraged cooperation among professional bodies and relevant international, regional,and national governmental organizations, which has produced significant progress in combating organ traffickingand transplant tourism around the world. At a fifth anniversary meeting in Qatar in April 2013, the DICGtook note of this progress and set forth in a Communique´ a number of specific activities and resolved to furtherengage groups from many sectors in working toward the Declaration’s objectives.

Medical travel and the sale of human biological materials: suggestions for ethical policy development

The international medical travel industry includes patients seeking to access human biological materials (HBM) including gametes, organs and stem cells. Of the various niche markets, ‘transplant tourism’ has earned global condemnation and efforts to eradicate cross-border trade in organs, while other markets continue to expand. This article reviews the ethical issues raised by medical travel for HBM, in particular those concerning trade in HBM. It argues that a more consistent approach to the regulation of cross-border trade is imperative to ensure that the perils of ‘transplant tourism’ are not replicated in other markets. In addition, it discusses the role of the self-sufficiency model in assisting the development of ethical and practical policies regarding the procurement and use of human biological materials at a national level, thereby minimizing demand for medical travel.

Busy auditors, ethical behavior, and ciscretionary accruals quality in Malaysia

The required professional and ethical pronouncements of accountants mean that auditors need to be competent and exercise due care and skill in the performance of their audits. In this study, we examine what happens when auditors take on more clients than they should, thus raising doubts about their ability to maintain competence and audit quality. Using 2803 observations of Malaysian companies from 2010 to 2013, we find that auditors with multiple clients are associated with lower earnings quality, proxied by total accruals and discretionary accruals. Our results demonstrate that associating client firms’ reported discretionary accruals with individual auditors, rather than their firms or offices, is important in determining audit quality. Moreover, we demonstrate that the disclosure of auditors’ signatures on their reports is useful for assessing auditor quality at the individual level, thus contributing to the debate on the usefulness of having auditor identities on reports.

Relationality and ethical know-how in Indigenous research

The central aims of principles and protocols for ethics and ethical conduct of Indigenous research such as those found in AIATSIS Guidelines for Ethical Research in Indigenous Studies (2012) and thoseon pre-­‐ethics protocols recently developed by emerging researchers in this field (Martin, Barrett , Koolmatrie et al , 2015) has been to address the problem of non-­‐Indigenous researchers remaining blind to their own imitations, overlooking the partial and situated perspectives and assumptions that underpin their approaches to research and hence creating asymmetrical relations between researcher and participant -­‐ usually to the detriment of the latter. However, we may ask whether these principals, in themselves, are enough to achieve this aim if the very ontological and epistemological foundations of western research in Indigenous contexts remain the same.

Guidelines and principles for pre-ethical approaches to Indigenous Australian research

In concert with AIATSIS’ Guidelines for Ethical Research in Australian Indigenous Studies 2012, these guidelines articulate the need for the researcher to position their own research from the outset, before any research takes place. The rationale of these guidelines are to protect the rights for Indigenous peoples whilst building a strong relational connection with participants of the research. Pre-‐ethic guidelines are necessary in order to bring to the foreground Indigenous knowledges and relationships premised on the needs, rights and aspirations of Indigenous peoples, communities and entities.

Le sens de l’urgence à l’hôpital

Article

Taking Issue with History: Empathy and the Ethical Imperatives of Creative Interventions

The purpose of this thesis was to contribute to a dialogue that considers the relationship between history, literature, and empathy as a literary affect. Specifically, I explored sites of literature’s transformative potential as it relates to cultural studies and the ethics of deconstruction. Via a deconstructive, post-colonial reading of Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I considered how subjects in our current socio-political moment can feel history. Emerging from a post-structurally mediated engagement with history, signification, and feeling, I argued that empathy, as it is contentiously presented in the context of deconstruction, is not necessarily a reductive or essentialist approach towards relating or “being-with” an-other. Instead, I proposed that the act of reading historiographical novels that take constructions of the Atlantic Slave Trade to task might generate an affective empathy, which could in turn engender a more empathetic relationality and way of being-in-the-world.

Le sens de l’urgence à l’hôpital

Article

Ethical-moral courses of action and active citizenship in health students

Abstract Introduction: The practice of active citizenship, ethical-moral courses of action and civic, moral and ethics education are essentials for ethical decision making in health. Objetive: To determine if gender influences students’ ethical- moral course of action. Methods: Descriptive study with a non-probabilistic sample of 85 students enrolled in the 1st cycle of the health degree. Results: Of the participants surveyed 61.2% were found to say that action should take into account their moral principles, with ethical/ moral subjectivism prevailing; 44.7% consider that one should “Do what will have the best consequences for the greatest number of people”, with the principle of utilitarianism being significant; 55.3% think that “An action is ethically good” if “It is in accordance with morality”, thereby highlighting subjectivism/relativism; 45.9% believe that “ethical-moral values” “are relative and vary from society to society” agreeing with relativism as an explanatory principle for action. Males showed a greater tendency to support their decision-making with the principle of objectivism, (Fischer=.010). Conclusion: The results suggest that students’ ethical-moral education is required to promote an ethical-moral course of action in their professional practice. Thus, universities with their health courses should be at the forefront of this education, making their graduates ambassadors/interveners of a way of knowing and of being as well as promoters of the dignity of the citizen of the modern world.

Fundaments of the ethical acting in university students

It is urgent that the superior Education in the health area develops in the students a pro-active ethical commitment which is translated into the creation of socio-professional and rational and clarified socio-cultural values.

Forming, informing and transforming teacher education researchers as ethical subjects

Editorial statement from the November 2011 issue of Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education.