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September 18, 2013 The phrase in vogue today with advocates of minimum wage laws--laws forcing employers to pay employees more than they otherwise would--is 'living wage.' But, apart from laws [...]

For the past three years, if you asked leaders of large organizations to describe their ideal culture, you would most likely hear the word 'engagement' in their response. Whether they [...]

Supererogatory acts are considered by some to be part of medicine, whereas others accept supererogation to be a gratuituous virtue, to be extolled when present, but not to be demanded. The present paper sides with those contending that medicine is duty-bound to benefit patients and that supererogation/altruism must per definition remain outside and beyond any role-description of the profession. Medical ethics should be bound by rational ethics and steer away from separatist views which grant exclusive privileges but also create excessive demands, way beyond what physicians perform or are willing and able to offer.

Throughout the English-speaking world the term 'good Samaritan' is synonymous with charitable do-gooders. Hospitals with the name 'Samaritan' appear throughout the United States, from Medstar Good Samaritan Hospital in Baltimore [...]

There has been a troublesome anomaly in the UK between cash payment to men for sperm donation and the effective assumption that women will pay to donate eggs. Some commentators, including Donald Evans in this journal, have argued that the anomaly should be resolved by treating women on the same terms as men. But this argument ignores important difficulties about property in the body, particularly in relation to gametes. There are good reasons for thinking that the contract model and payment for gametes are both inappropriate, and that a model based on altruism should be applied to both sexes. Key words Reproductive technologies; organ donation; tissue donation.

Views on corporate altruism are exchanged in a panel discussion participated in by Texaco CFO Allen J. Crowe, Congressional Budget Office director Robert D. Reischauer, journalist Irving Kristol, Public Agenda Foundation president Daniel Yankelovich and academic Barry Schwartz. Krowe makes the point that corporate altruism is often no more than enlightened self-interest, being based on the reaping of goodwill that could bring long-term rewards. Reischauer disagrees with Krowe, as does Yankelovich. Both argue that morally-based decisions can be made without reference to self-interest. Kristol and Schwartz adopt a different line of thought, preferring to stress that individual perceptions of altruism may differ from that of corporations.

A study analyzes survey and interview data to identify the factors that motivate or hinder faculty participation in self-archiving practices, that is, placing research work in various open access (OA) venues. Results identify factors such as altruism, disciplinary norms and no harmful impact on academic career motivate faculty self-archiving, while age, and concerns about copyright, extra time and effort and technical ability hinder the practice.

Last summer, not long after Zell Kravinsky had given almost his entire forty-five-million-dollar real-estate fortune to charity, he called Barry Katz, an old friend in Connecticut, and asked for help [...]

December 7, 2012 Everyone is aware that America faces a financial crisis involving the $16.3 trillion national debt, the impending 'fiscal cliff,' (1) and the long-term insolvency of entitlement programs. [...]

October 19, 2012 Though evolutionary anthropologist Eric Michael Johnson, writing for Slate, claims to have disproven Ayn Rand's ethics of rational egoism through study of the morals of hunter-gatherer tribes, [...]

Twenty-first-century moral intelligence (1) requires that we admit the mythology of some traditional moral values. That is, sometimes we pretend to live by values that in reality fail us. For [...]

Supererogation can be distinguished from altruism, in that the former is located in the category of duty but exceeds the strict requirements of duty, whereas altruism belongs to a different moral category from duty. It follows that doctors do not act altruistically in their professional roles. Individual doctors may sometimes show supererogation, but supererogation is not a necessary feature of the medical profession. The aim of medicine is to act in the best interests of patients. This aim involves neither supererogation nor even the moral quality of beneficence. It is simply a job description. Morality enters medicine through the quality of the individual doctor's work, not by the definition of that work., Dr McKay maintains that the duties of the doctor are supererogatory, (1) and Drs Glannon and Ross maintain that doctors are not altruistic (2) (although patients sometimes are). What is [...]

There is a growing belief in the US that medicine is an altruistic profession, and that physicians display altruism in their daily work. We argue that one of the most fundamental features of medical professionalism is a fiduciary responsibility to patients, which implies a duty or obligation to act in patients' best medical interests. The term that best captures this sense of obligation is 'beneficence', which contrasts with 'altruism' because the latter act is supererogatory and is beyond obligation. On the other hand, we offer several examples in which patients act altruistically. If it is patients and not the doctors who are altruistic, then the patients are the gift-bearers and to that extent doctors owe them gratitude and respect for their many contributions to medicine. Recognising this might help us better understand the moral significance of the doctor-patient relationship in modern medicine., In a recent review of the advances in medicine in the twentieth century, the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine asserted that 'medicine is one of the few [...]

Altruism, the performance of cooperative unselfish acts beneficial to others, has been studied in several medical contexts, including the donation of organs and genetic material and patients' participation in potentially […]