Presents a unique view of the current state of development of bioethics in Latin America.

Ruy Perez Tamayo, Rubén Lisker, and Ricardo Tapia, La Construcción de la Bioética, Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2007, reviewed by Arleen L. F. Salles.

This book brings the history of Latin American philosophy to an English-speaking audience through the prominent voices of Mauricio Beuchot, Horacio Cerutti-Guldberg, María Luisa Femenías, Jorge J. E. Gracia, Oscar R. Martí, León Olivé, Carlos Pereda, and Eduardo Rabossi. They argue that Spanish is not a philosophically irrelevant language and that there are original positions to be found in the work of Latin American philosophers.

This collection brings together fourteen contributions by authors from around the globe. Each of the contributions engages with questions about how local and global bioethical issues are made to be comparable, in the hope of redressing basic needs and demands for justice. These works demonstrate the significant conceptual contributions that can be made through feminists' attention to debates in a range of interrelated fields, especially as they formulate appropriate responses to developments in medical technology, global economics, population shifts, and poverty.

The recently published BRAIN 2.0 Neuroethics Report offers a very helpful overview of the possible ethical, social, philosophical, and legal issues raised by neuroscience in the context of BRAIN’s research priorities thus contributing to the attempt to develop ethically sound neuroscience. In this article, we turn to a running theme of the document: the need for an ethical framework for the BRAIN Initiative and for further integration of neuroethics and neuroscience. We assess some of the issues raised and provide an (...) explanation of how we have addressed them in the Human Brain Project. We offer our experience in the HBP as a potential contribution to the international debate about neuroethics in the big brain initiatives. Our hope is that among other things, the type of exchange proposed by this AJOB special issue will prove productive in further identifying and discussing the issues and in inspiring appropriate solutions. (shrink)

Joachim Schulte’s introduction provides a distinctive and masterful account of the full range of Wittgenstein’s thought. It is concise but not compressed, substantive but not overloaded with developmental or technical detail, informed by the latest scholarship but not pedantic. Beginners will find it accessible and seasoned students of Wittgenstein will appreciate it for the illuminating overview it provides.

IntroductionThe identity thesis asserts that for every psychological state P there is a neural state N such that P=N. In the hope of rendering IT clear and plausible many identity theorists have compared psycho-neural identity claims to such theoretical identities as temperature is identical with molecular mean kinetic energy. However such a comparison admits a weak and a strong interpretation. According to the weak interpretation, psycho-neural identities are said to be like theoretical identities in the sense that the former are (...) contingent claims just as the latter are presumed to be. Identity theorists have appealed to the contingent status of IT in order to meet prima facie objections of the following sort. We can imagine ourselves undergoing a pain, although we are not undergoing the neural process which the identity theorist claims is identical with the pain. Indeed we can imagine ourselves being in pain and yet not having a brain at all. Hence IT is false. Identity theorists have replied by arguing that this objection merely shows that IT is not a necessary truth, or that psychological and neurological terms do not have the same meaning. (shrink)

Quine and others have put many problems to quantified modal logic. Their purpose is to show the logic to be paradoxical or at least very peculiar. Many of these problems center around the interplay between modality, quantification and identity.

Possible distributive justice frameworks for providing health care by general practitioners are discussed. The ethical considerations before and after the recent changes to the British National Health Service are contrasted, with particular emphasis on a possible ethical divide that has been produced between fund-holding and non-fund-holding general practitioners. It is argued that general practitioners in non-fund-holding practices can continue as ethical advocates for their patients and distribute health care within an egalitarian framework. However, those in fund-holding practices may now be (...) seen as interest advocates and may have to practise utilitarian distributive justice. Patient groups may be needed to ensure that these general practitioners are seen to act justly in the distribution of the health care resources for which they are now responsible. (shrink)

In the anthropology of Gregory of Elvira there converge different lines of thought. On the one hand he is very dependent on Origen, on the other there is to be found in him the mental framework of Irenaeus and he quotes word for word long passages from Tertullian. The article attempts to determine to what extent, starting from those influences he encountered, Gregory has developed a personal vision of the relationship between Adam and Christ along the double line of the (...) Pauline parallel : sin and grace, initial creation and eschatological fulfilment. If some characteristic passages stress much this second aspect, the majority of the texts analyzed concentrate primarily on the theme of redemption. The reason for the prefiguration of Christ in the creation of Adam, so important for Irenaeus and Tertullian, does not have in Gregory the prominent place which one might have expected to find. (shrink)

The relation between Jesus and the Spirit appears in diverse occasions and in different contexts in Gregory. Jesus has sanctified the waters in his baptism, from his body springs the Spirit whom he has received in the Jordan, he is the «anointed», the «Christ» par excellence who gives the Holy Spirit to people at Pentecost. The theology of the baptism of the Lord calls for special attention; it takes place at an interesting moment of transition. On the one hand, the (...) effusion of the Spirit on the humanity of Jesus does not create any problem for Gregory who distinguishes it clearly from the incarnation of the Son. On the other hand, the initiative of the Father in this unction is not paid special attention to, nor does it seem that it has a special significance for Jesus himself and the beginning of his mission in the world. However, much stress is given to the ecclesiological dimension of the descent of the Spirit in the baptism of Christ. On him comes the Spirit in fullness, as he will also abide in fullness in the whole Church which is his Body. Each of the Christians receives only a partial gift which must contribute to the perfection of the whole. (shrink)