This article addresses two questions: First, how does the value of human dignity distinctively bear on a state’s responsibilities in relation to migrants; and, secondly, how serious a wrong is it when a state fails to respect the dignity of migrants? In response to these questions, a view is presented about the distinction between wrongs that violate cosmopolitan standards and wrongs that violate the standards that are distinctive to a particular community; about when and how the contested concept of human (...) dignity might be engaged; and, elaborating a three-tiered and lexically ordered scheme of state responsibilities, about how we should assess the seriousness of a state’s failure to respect the dignity of migrants. (shrink)

This article, prompted by Heidi Crowter’s campaign to eliminate the discriminatory aspects of current abortion law, outlines the challenges to good governance in a context of bioethical plurality. First, the nature of the plurality is sketched. Secondly, some reflections are presented on how those who have governance responsibilities might ease the tensions engendered by the plurality; and, at the same time, how the discontented governed might reasonably press their views. Thirdly, a model of good governance (demanding integrity by those who (...) govern and respect for the global commons) is introduced. The conclusion is that good faith governance merits our respect, but it does not guarantee particular outcomes or positions that will meet with the approval of all bioethical constituencies or individuals. Accordingly, we have to learn not only to live with rocks and hard places but also to find civilized ways of debating our differences. (shrink)

This paper argues that, in a community of rights, the prima facie responsibilities of researchers to attend to the ancillary-care needs of their participants would be determined by a four-stage test . This test, it is suggested, sets a standard for common law courts that are invited to recognize the ancillary-care responsibilities of researchers, whether as a matter of contract or tort law.

This article sketches how liberal principles can be coherently set alongside the stewardship responsibilities of regulators. It indicates how this bears on the legitimacy of public health interventions in general and interventions of the kind associated with New York City’s public health programme in particular. The key idea is that stewardship responsibilities relate to the essential infrastructural conditions for human well-being; these conditions need to be protected because they are the staging for all human activity. Liberal principles, by contrast, presuppose (...) that the basic conditions for human well-being are in place; and, given this presupposition, they present a view about how humans should live, about how they should interact and transact and about how they should flourish. Where regulators are guided by a liberal ethic, they act illegitimately if they try to dictate how individuals should lead their lives; but, acting under their stewardship jurisdiction, regulators may legitimately intervene if they are trying to protect the conditions that are essential for any kind of human life. The article concludes by suggesting that while it is a good thing that New York City’s policies provoke debate about the legitimacy of public health interventions, it is the infrastructural conditions, and not the superstructural activities, that are the regulatory priority. (shrink)

It is axiomatic that the first responsibility of researchers, whether they are working in the developed or the developing world, is to do no harm to those who participate in their studies or trials. However, on neither side of the Atlantic is there any such settled view with regard to the responsibility of researchers to attend to the ancillary-care needs of their participants – that is, a responsibility to advise or assist participants who have medical condition X in circumstances where (...) the research concerns medical condition Y, and the research did not contribute to the presence of condition X in participants, nor did the having of condition X contribute to the research. Consider, for example, the following hypothetical posed by Leah Belsky and Henry Richardson:Researchers testing a new treatment for tuberculosis in a developing country discover some patients have HIV infection. Do they have a responsibility to provide antiretroviral drugs? (shrink)

Approximately 6000 men die every year from ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm in England and Wales. Randomised clinical trials and a large pilot study have shown that ultrasound screening of men aged 65 years can prevent about half of these deaths. However, there is a significant perioperative morbidity and mortality from interventions to repair the detected aneurysm. This paper explores the ethical issues of screening men for abdominal aortic aneurysm. It is concluded that a population screening programme for abdominal aortic aneurysm (...) offers a clear balance of good over harm. It is therefore ethically justified, as long as men are given adequate information at every stage of the process. Each man has the right to be properly informed, regardless of whether he accepts the invitation to be screened and, if an aneurysm is detected, whether or not he accepts treatment. (shrink)

This paper, guided by the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, assumes that regulators should aim to support the development of nanomedicine while, at the same time, putting in place whatever limits or safeguards are indicated by ethical considerations. Relative to this regulatory objective, it is argued that, notwithstanding the importance of precaution (characteristically, concerning health, safety, and the environment), ethical reflection needs to go both broader and deeper. It is suggested that, by attending to the basic matrix (...) of ethical debate and the “bioethical triangle” through which the matrix is currently articulated, the breadth, depth, and conflictual plurality of ethical concerns about nanomedicine will be clarified. In this light, the conventional thinking about precaution is revisited and concerns about human dignity and informed consent (under conditions of extreme uncertainty) are analysed. The paper concludes that, once the range of ethical pluralism is grasped, the extent of the challenge facing regulators will be more clearly appreciated. (shrink)

In the original publication the title reads “The Right to Know and the Right Not to Know Revisited: Part One”. The paper consisted of both Part One and Part Two hence the title has to be corrected.

This special issue of the Modern Law Review addresses a range of key issues - conceptual, ethical, political and practical - arising from the regulatory ...

Nuffield Council on Bioethics, London * Corresponding author: Nuffield Council on Bioethics, 28 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3JS, UK. Email: hschmidt{at}nuffieldbioethics.org ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> Abstract In November 2007, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics published the report Public Health: Ethical Issues . While the report has been welcomed by a wide range of stakeholders, there has also been some criticism. First, it has been suggested that it is not clear why, in developing its ‘stewardship (...) model’, the Council felt the need to go beyond the liberal position developed by John Stuart Mill—what is it that the stewardship model adds? Second, it is suggested that the Report is confused about the concept of paternalism. Third, it is argued that the discussion of the concept of stewardship is lacking in detail and substance. We clarify the Working Party's thinking regarding these three areas, which demonstrates the robustness of the framework set out in the report. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This paper challenges the view, commonly held inbiolaw and bioethics, that there can be no proprietaryrights in our own bodies or body parts. Whether thestarting point is the post-intervention informedconsent regime of Article 22 of the Convention ofHuman Rights and Biomedicine or the traditional(exclusionary) understanding of private property it isargued that property in our own bodies or body partsis presupposed. Although these arguments do notdemonstrate that there is property of this kind (forthat, a full-scale justification of the institution ofprivate property (...) would be required), they suggestnevertheless that the commonly held view has animmanent property logic that has not yet been drawnout or appreciated. (shrink)

Two claims lay the foundation for Beyleveld and Brownsword’s legal theory. The first says that immoral laws cannot be law, the second that rights to freedom and welfare can be proven to be logically necessary given merely the phenomenon of agency. The author argues that both claims are too strong. The first is an overidealization of law, which fails to do justice to its double nature as a real as well as an ideal phenomenon. The second must fail, for (...) a moral “ought” cannot be deduced from a merely instrumental “ought.”. (shrink)

This volume provides a philosophical introduction to and analysis of the study of metaphor. By proceeding from the concrete analysis of complex metaphors, White is able to identify a range of features which are incompatible with standard accounts of the way words function in metaphor.

This book introduces student to the three major figures of modern philosophy known as the rationalists. It is not for complete beginners, but it is an accessible account of their thought. By concerning itself with metaphysics, and in particular substance, the book relates an important historical debate largely neglected by the contemporary debates in the once again popular area of traditional metaphysics. in philosophy. (Do Not USE).

In his bestselling work of popular science, Sir Roger Penrose takes us on a fascinating roller-coaster ride through the basic principles of physics, cosmology, mathematics, and philosophy to show that human thinking can never be emulated by a machine.

Introduction -- The mathematical roots of the concept of analogy -- Aristotle : the uses of analogy -- Aristotle : analogy and language -- Thomas Aquinas -- Immanuel Kant -- Karl Barth -- Final reflections.

The most pressing issues of the twenty-first century—climate change and persistent hunger in a world of food surpluses, to name only two—are not problems that can be solved from within individual disciplines, nation-states, or cultural perspectives. They are predicaments that can only be resolved by generating sustained and globally robust coordination across value systems. The scale of the problems and necessity for coordinated global solutions signal a world historical transit as momentous as the Industrial Revolution: a transition from the predominance (...) of technical knowledge to that of ethical deliberation. This volume brings together leading thinkers from around the world to deliberate on how best to correlate worth (value) with what is worthwhile (values), pairing human prosperity with personal, environmental, and spiritual flourishing in a world of differing visions of what constitutes a moral life. Especially in the aftermath of what is now being called the Great Recession, awareness has mounted of the imperative to question the modern divorce of economics from ethics. While the domains of economics and ethics were from antiquity through at least the eighteenth century understood in many cultures to be coterminous and mutually entailing, the modern assumption has been that the goal of maximizing human prosperity and the aim of justly enhancing our lives as persons and as communities were functionally and practically distinct. Working from a wide array of perspectives, the contributors to this volume offer a set of challenges to the assumed independence of the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of human and planetary well-being. Reflecting on the complex interrelationship among economics, justice, and equity, the book resists "one size fits all" approaches and struggles to revitalize the marriage of economics and ethics by activating cultural differences as the basis of mutual contribution to shared human flourishing. The publication of this important collection will stimulate or extend critical debates among scholars and students working in a number of disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, including philosophy, history, environmental studies, economics, and law. Contributors: Roger T. Ames, James Behuniak Jr., Steve Bein, Nalini Bhushan, Purushottama Bilimoria, Steven Burik, Amita Chatterjee, Baoyan Cheng, Gordon Davis, Jay L. Garfield, Steven F. Geisz, Peter D. Hershock, Larry A. Hickman, Kathleen M. Higgins, Heidi M. Hurd, Thomas P. Kasulis, Workineh Kelbessa, Lori Keleher, Oliver Leaman, James McRae, Jin Y. Park, James Peterman, Naoko Saito, May Sim, Robert Smid, Paul Standish, Kenneth W. Stikkers, Karsten J. Struhl, Meera Sushila Viswanathan, Wu Shiu- Ching, Xu Di, T. Yamauchi, Yang Liuxin. (shrink)

Synaesthesia is considered a rare perceptual capacity, and one that is not capable of cultivation. However, meditators report the experience quite commonly, and in questionnaire surveys, respondents claimed to experience synaesthesia in 35% of meditation retreatants, in 63% of a group of regular meditators, and in 86% of advanced teachers. These rates were significantly higher than in nonmeditator controls, and displayed significant correlations with measures of amount of meditation experience. A review of ancient texts found reports suggestive of synaesthesia in (...) advanced meditators from India and China. These findings suggest that synaesthesia may be cultivated by meditation, and that laboratory studies of meditators could be rewarding. (shrink)

Description: The common western understanding of Buddhism today envisions this major world religion as one of compassion and tolerance. But as the author Droit reveals, this view bears little resemblance to one broadly held in the nineteenth-century European philosophical imagination that saw Buddhism as a religion of annihilation calling for the destruction of the self. The Cult of Nothingness traces the history of the western discovery of Buddhism. In so doing, the author shows that such major philosophers as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, (...) Hegel, Cousin, and Renan imagined Buddhism as a religion that was, as Nietzsche put it, a negation of the world. In fact, says the author, such portrayals were more a reflection of what was happening in Europe at the time-when the collapse of traditional European hierarchies and values, the specter of atheism, and the rise of racism and social revolts were shaking European societies-than an accurate description of Buddhist thought. The author also reflects on how this history continues to echo in contemporary western understanding of Buddhism. The book includes a comprehensive bibliography on books on Buddhism published in the west between 1638 and 1890. (shrink)