Medical ethics in the Federal Republic of Germany is characterized by two recurrent themes: a deontological emphasis on the physician's duty; and a conception of the patient as needy and help seeking, morally and biologically inferior to the physician. The philosophical and historical underpinnings of contemporary German attitudes toward euthanasia and the physician-patient relationship are d...

In the present research we analyze the interrelations of spatial distance and efficaciousness in helping needy others, and we investigate how these factors affect our judgments of moral helping obligations. The main question is under which conditions the location of an agent’s means of helping relative to a victim is regarded as morally relevant. We develop a new experimental design that allows...

This year is the 50th anniversary of Occupational Therapy (OT) in Iran. This is a hallmark to reflect on our achievements and plan for the future. Iranian OT was established in 1971 in Shafa Rehabilitation Hospital [1]. I can imagine how many people who were the managers facilitating the foundation of the department or those who were overseas occupational therapists were excited at the time. Th...

Two samples of university students completed self-report measures of chronic procrastination and either self-concept variables (Sample 1, n = 233) or self-presentational styles (Sample 2, n = 210). Results indicated that procrastination was significantly related to a self-concept of oneself as dominated by issues related to task performance, and to self-presentation strategies that reflected a ...

This article asses what is known and what remains to be understood about problem-solving courts. Specifically, the article asserts that drug courts serve a needy population, court mandated treatment programs have higher retention rates, those who participate longer have better outcomes, those in drug courts had lower rates of recidivism, drug use, and that graduated sanctions have statistically...

It is generally agreed that making progress towards eradicating hunger worldwide is a moral obligation for the richer countries of the world. The instrument known as food aid is widely regarded as an important vehicle for providing assistance to needy countries. However, fresh debates in the present Doha round of WTO negotiations have brought a renewed interest in food aid issues. The Doha roun...

Consider an income distribution among households of the same size and suppose that the individuals, equally needy from the point of view of an ethical observer, are treated unfairly within each household. We look for conditions under which welfare and inequality quasi-orders are preserved from the household level at the individual one. A necessary and sufficient condition for the Generalized Lo...

Food assistance to the needy in this country was initiated in legislation with the interesting title "The Potato Control Act of 1935." Nobody thought its primary aim was to help the poor. Rather, it was to dispose of surplus commodities in order to support farm prices-that is, to help the farmers. This initial objective is why the program was made the responsibility of the Department of Agricul...

Two of the primary programs through which the federal government provides benefits to low income families are the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program and the Food Stamp program. However, many eligible low income families do not actually receive these benefits. We combined state-level policy data with rich data on a national sample of low income families to investigate family ...

The UNDP report on the Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs (UNDP 2005), cautions that the Goals will not be met by 2015 in the most needy countries, and, in fact, warns that the situation in Africa may actually worsen. What can be done to secure some measure of success in the health-MDGs effort? Should strengthening health systems be regarded a ‘first-order’ goal within ‘higher-order’ MDGs to...