Facilitating independence in personal activities of daily living after a severe traumatic brain injury

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below.Aims: This study examined the effectiveness of two components of a treatment programme typically used by occupational therapists (OTs) in personal activities of daily living (PADL) rehabilitation. Methods: A multiple baseline probe design across PADL tasks was used, one which is particularly suited to the examination of the effects of complex interventions on skill performance. The subjects were two male adults with severe brain injuries and cognitive impairments who were in the acute stages of recovery. The OT treatment program consisted of a combination of errorless learning and strategy training approaches. The impact of the program was measured by the number of steps completed independently in each of these tasks, the level and type of assistance required, and by administering the UK Functional Independence Measure and the Assessment of Motor and Process Skills. Findings: Errorless learning and strategy training, as used within an OT programme, was demonstrated to be effective in reducing the amount of assistance both participants required to complete the targeted PADL tasks. Further, there was evidence of generalization of training effects among trained and untrained activities. Conclusions: Selecting and combining treatment techniques based on detailed assessment of functional performance is an area of high clinical importance but with limited research; the current study stands as an attempt towards that direction

Amelioration vs. Perversion

Words change meaning, usually in unpredictable ways. But some words’ meanings are revised intentionally. Revisionary projects are normally put forward in the service of some purpose – some serve specific goals of inquiry, and others serve ethical, political or social aims. Revisionist projects can ameliorate meanings, but they can also pervert. In this paper, I want to draw attention to the dangers of meaning perversions, and argue that the self-declared goodness of a revisionist project doesn’t suffice to avoid meaning perversions. The road to Hell, or to horrors on Earth, is paved with good intentions. Finally and more importantly, I want to demarcate what meaning perversions are. This, I hope, can help us assess the moral and political legitimacy of revisionary projects

Francis Hutcheson and John Clarke on Desire and Self-Interest

Among the most animating debates in eighteenth-century British ethics was the debate over psychological egoism, the view that our most basic desires are self-interested. An important episode in that debate, less well known than it should be, was the exchange between Francis Hutcheson and John Clarke of Hull. In the early editions of his Inquiry into Virtue, Hutcheson argued ingeniously against psychological egoism; in his Foundation of Morality, Clarke argued ingeniously against Hutcheson’s arguments. Later, Hutcheson attempted new arguments against psychological egoism, designed to overcome Clarke’s objections. This article examines the exchange between these philosophers. Its conclusion, influenced partly by Clarke, is that psychological egoism withstands Hutcheson’s arguments. This is not to belittle those arguments—indeed, they are among the most resourceful and plausible of their kind. The fact that egoism withstands them is thus not a mere negative result, but a stimulus to consider carefully the ways in which progress in this area may be possible

The Language of Mental Illness

This paper surveys some philosophical issues with the language surrounding mental illness, but is especially focused on pejoratives relating to mental illness. I argue that though 'crazy' and similar mental illness-based epithets (MI-epithets) are not best understood as slurs, they do function to isolate, exclude, and marginalize members of the targeted group in ways similar to the harmfulness of slurs more generally. While they do not generally express the hate/contempt characteristic of weaponized uses of slurs, MI-epithets perpetuate epistemic injustice by portraying sufferers of mental illness as deserving minimal credibility. After outlining the ways in which these epithets can cause harm, I examine available legal and social remedies, and suggest that the best path going forward is to pursue a reclamation project rather than aiming to censure the use of MI-epithets

THE PROFESSIONALIZATION OF ETHICS

This Article looks at the importance of teaching law graduates to be ethical lawyers. The author hypothesizes that the current versions of the ethical rules and the structure of law firms have the potential to encourage the professionalization of ethics rather than connecting all practitioners to the values of professional responsibility. This Article sets out the factors that contribute to the increased professionalization of professional responsibility in large law firms. These factors are the need for lawyers to always be accessible, the pressure to specialize in a specific field, and the complexity of the ethics rules as written. The author argues that as a whole the ethics rules need to be more accessible to the ordinary, non-expert practitioner, would be a valuable contribution. The three specific proposals are the creation of specialty-specific ethics education, acknowledge the contribution of the ethics specialists, and to draft the ethics rules differently. The goal of this new approach is to “de-professionalize” ethics and remind each lawyer of her obligation to be an ethical practitione

The Eclipse of Reason and the End of the Frankfurt School in America

Originally published in New German Critique: http://www.dukeupress.edu/Catalog/ViewProduct.php?viewby=journal&productid=45622. Copyright Duke University Press