In this essay, the author describes the trajectory toward a just peace framework in contemporary Catholic social teaching, as well as similar trends in the broader Christian community. He articulates a refined just peace framework or process that has arisen from and within a pastoral approach that listens to the experiences and voices of people in conflict situations across various cultural spaces. He then turns to the recent and challenging case of the war in Ukraine to explore and argue for (...) a just peace approach rooted in the praxis of accompaniment. The author also reflects on the distinction between and implications of an accompaniment approach and a justification-of-war approach to initiate more inquiry on this topic. (shrink)

In this essay, the author describes the trajectory toward a just peace framework in contemporary Catholic social teaching, as well as similar trends in the broader Christian community. He articulates a refined just peace framework or process that has arisen from and within a pastoral approach that listens to the experiences and voices of people in conflict situations across various cultural spaces. He then turns to the recent and challenging case of the war in Ukraine to explore and argue for (...) a just peace approach rooted in the praxis of accompaniment. The author also reflects on the distinction between and implications of an accompaniment approach and a justification-of-war approach to initiate more inquiry on this topic. (shrink)

The habits of direct violence in U.S. society continue to pose dangerous and dehumanizing trends. As scholars and activists cultivate alternatives to the use ofviolence, a key need involves providing direct experience for U.S. residents to explore and see the power of unarmed civilian peacekeeping. In this paper I ask the following questions: How can the international unarmed civilian peacekeeping models influence the U.S. in the form of domestic peace teams? What are the accomplishments and the challenges for local peace (...) teams with an eye toward further development? First, I describe some broad trends in the international work of unarmed civilian peacekeeping. Second, I analyze the accomplishments and challenges for the Michigan Peace Team and Ceasefire in Chicago. Third, I integrate these insights to recommend key contributions from each program toward developing more domestic peace teams. I briefly provide a recent example and analysis of implementing these recommendations in the DC Peace Team. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Consistently Pro-Life: The Ethics of Bloodshed in Ancient Christianity by Rob Arner, and: Christ at the Checkpoint: Theology in the Service of Justice and Peace ed. by Paul Alexander, and: Becoming Nonviolent Peacemakers: A Virtue Ethic for Catholic Social Teaching and US Policy by Eli Sarasan McCarthyBrian D. BerryReview of Consistently Pro-Life: The Ethics of Bloodshed in Ancient Christianity ROB ARNER Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2010. 136 pp. $15.56Review (...) of Christ at the Checkpoint: Theology in the Service of Justice and Peace EDITED BY PAUL ALEXANDER Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012. 182 pp. $19.80Review of Becoming Nonviolent Peacemakers: A Virtue Ethic for Catholic Social Teaching and US Policy ELI SARASAN MCCARTHY Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012. 259 pp. $27.00In Consistently Pro-Life, Rob Arner (who teaches at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia) makes the case that Christians should not kill other human beings—regardless of the circumstances. Taking as his point of departure the vigilante killing of abortion doctor George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas, in 2009, he argues not only that abortion is always morally impermissible but so also is [End Page 217] the murder of abortion doctors and the use of the death penalty to punish those who murder them. In addition, he turns to the early church fathers to contend that, prior to Constantine, “without exception, the church strongly condemned the taking of human life in any form whatsoever”—thus rejecting abortion and infanticide, the blood sport of the Roman games, suicide, and killing in war (120). This was because the New Testament witness to Jesus and his death on the cross required early Christians to view “the means as just as important, if not more important, than the ends” (xiii).Arner supplements this deontological argument for Christian pacifism, which he learned from John Howard Yoder, with a brief consideration of the virtue of patience cultivated in the early churches, reflecting the influence of Stanley Hauerwas on his thought. This “cardinal virtue” connoting “longsuffering, forbearance, patient endurance”—as found in Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:38–48)—enabled early Christians to practice non-violent resistance “deferring personal revenge in favor of God’s vindicating justice” (98). If Christians were to adopt this same consistently pro-life ethic today, argues Arner, it would “lead to greater healing and peace in our blood-soaked world” (121). The book closes with three appendices—one of which is a chart of terminology that dehumanizes vulnerable victims, including unborn human beings. Unfortunately, the book does not have an index.Christ at the Checkpoint, edited by Paul Alexander (professor of Christian ethics and public policy at the Palmer Theological Seminary of Eastern University), includes thirteen plenary addresses delivered at a conference on the Arab-Israeli conflict organized by Palestinian Evangelical Christians at Bethlehem Bible College in March 2010. Almost all of the contributors to this volume—including biblical scholars, theologians, ethicists, pastors, activists, and others—criticize the ideology of Christian Zionism and its support of a theology of dispensationalism that, in their view, distorts the scriptures and fosters violence rather than reconciliation between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In his own presentation titled “What Can Pentecostals and Charismatics Do for Peace with Justice in Israel and Palestine?,” Alexander—who describes himself as a former “one-sided” Christian Zionist who later discovered the writings of Yoder and Hauerwas—appeals to Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and urges Pentecostals to create church communities “that cultivate persons of character and conviction, who through habits, practices, and action live out the core of our faith” (69). Along with being faithful to the “greater challenges” of love, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness, he argues that they should publicly declare that Jesus does not want Israel to continue the occupation of Palestine, and they should engage in the “easier tasks” of promoting human rights, lending support to United Nations Resolutions, and working toward a two-state solution (72). “The time has come in human history,” writes Alexander, “for Pentecostals to speak and act prophetically regarding this present injustice … [End Page 218] and to use every nonviolent weapon in our arsenal—stories, preaching... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Becoming Nonviolent Peacemakers: A Virtue Ethic for Catholic Social Teaching and US Policy by Eli Sasaran McCarthyMarc V. RuganiBecoming Nonviolent Peacemakers: A Virtue Ethic for Catholic Social Teaching and US Policy Eli Sasaran McCarthy EUGENE, OR: PICKWICK PUBLICATIONS, 2011. XVII 1 259 PP. $32.00Contemporary US political discourse is generally couched in the language of rule-based rights analysis or utilitarian calculus, both of which limit the imagination of (...) decision-makers and society at large. In Becoming Nonviolent Peacemakers, Eli Sasaran McCarthy seeks to disrupt any complacency Americans and our representative leadership might have with these ethical approaches. Drawing on well-reasoned philosophical arguments and the witness of paradigmatic figures, McCarthy builds a case for public policies of nonviolent peacemaking created from and analyzed through the framework of virtue ethics. Such policies, he posits, would not only achieve a more comprehensive agenda of peacemaking but would also approach more closely the vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Beloved Community."McCarthy's project is ambitious and multifaceted. He sets out to synthesize critiques of prevailing rule- and strategy-based assessments of nonviolent [End Page 204] peacemaking, making proposals for a virtue-based assessment from Christian, Hindu, and Muslim sources as well as with the best contributions of human rights theory in order to supplement a virtue approach. At the outset he states, "My thesis is that a virtue-based assessment of nonviolent peacemaking enhanced by aspects of human rights discourse largely resolves key limits of rule-based and strategy-based assessments of nonviolent peacemaking for public discourse and policy" (2). To prove this, he grapples with influential scholars on the subject, such as James Childress and Gene Sharp, to show how deontology and consequentialism too narrowly constrain the vision of what nonviolent peacemaking can achieve, both in effect and the formation of agents' character. Addressing the work of Bernard Häring, Stanley Hauerwas, and Lisa Sowle Cahill, he brings the fruit of Christian theological ethics to bear on the advantages of a virtue-based assessment of nonviolence. Though that is significant enough, McCarthy also presents the life and work of both Mahatma Gandhi and Abdul Ghaffar Khan to demonstrate the consonance of a virtue approach even across cultural and religious lines. He finally plots a way forward using the best of rights theory and virtue theory to show how nonviolent peacemaking fulfills the Catholic social tradition's vision of human dignity and the common good.McCarthy lends much to the argument that "we ought to consider nonviolent peacemaking a distinct virtue rather than merely subsuming it in the paradigmatic actions of other virtues" (75). With scripture at its foundation and positioned within the traditions of virtue ethics and the Catholic social doctrine, he weaves a tight argument for nonviolence within a Christian context while also aiming to be approachable and sympathetic to non-Christian perspectives. Because of the contemporary context of McCarthy's project, he does focus his attention almost exclusively on twentieth- and twenty-first-century sources; it would be helpful to be already familiar with virtue ethics and its classic sources, like Aristotle, Cicero, and Aquinas.McCarthy writes clearly and directly to readers, making the schema of his argument explicit in each chapter. His extensive referencing and ample bibliography engage both academic research and popular journalism, making this a great resource for those pursuing public theology and students in advanced undergraduate and professional study. His last chapter, which provides a case study regarding the Sudanese genocide in Darfur, applies his peacemaking proposals in a compelling thought experiment. One can hope McCarthy's continued research yields not only more case studies that invite creative problem-solving through the virtue of nonviolent peacemaking but also a book-length study that challenges US domestic policy as successfully as his investigation of US foreign policy here. [End Page 205]Marc V. RuganiThe Catholic University of AmericaCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Recently, bioethicists and the UNCRPD have advocated for supported medical decision-making on behalf of patients with intellectual disabilities. But what does supported decision-making really entail? One compelling framework is Anita Silvers and Leslie Francis’ mental prosthesis account, which envisions supported decision-making as a process in which trustees act as mere appendages for the patient’s will; the trustee provides the cognitive tools the patient requires to realize her conception of her own good. We argue that supported decision-making would be better understood (...) as a collaborative process, giving patients with intellectual disabilities the opportunity to make decisions in a respectful relationship with trusted others. We offer an alternative account of supported decision-making where the primary constraint is to protect the patient from domination by the trustee. This is advantageous in its preservation of the prospects for genuine collaboration, for the mental prosthesis approach ultimately reinforces a problematic ideal of isolated patient self-determination. (shrink)

In this new textbook two Catholic ethicists with extensive teaching experience present a moral theology based on vision. David Matzko McCarthy and James M. Donohue draw widely from the Western philosophical tradition while integrating biblical and theological themes in order to explore such fundamental questions as What is good? The fourteen chapters in Moral Vision are short and thematic. Substantive study questions engage with primary texts and encourage students to apply theory to everyday life and common human experiences. The (...) book is accessibly written and flexible enough to fit into any undergraduate or seminary course on ethics. (shrink)

Introduction générale à la philosophie des sciences du 20e siècle.

Discovering laws of nature was a way to worship a law-giving God, during the Scientific Revolution. So why should we consider it worthwhile now, in our own more secularized science? For historical perspective, I examine two competing early modern theological traditions that related laws of nature to different divine attributes, and their secular legacy in views ranging from Kant and Nietzsche to Humean and ‘governing’ accounts in recent analytic metaphysics. Tracing these branching offshoots of ethically charged God-concepts sheds light on (...) how our ethical ideals and ideas of natural order can still be valuably integrated. Early modern intellectualists valued the law-governed order of nature as a sign of divine Reason. In turn, Reason traditionally ascribed to God has now been partly reclaimed for humans, reframing the value of natural order anthropocentrically, in terms of the value of our own intelligence. Alternatively, Reason may be reclaimed for nature itself, as in an ‘objective’ idealism or metaphysical rationalism. However, beyond divine Reason, an influential voluntarist tradition in theology stressed a connection between laws of nature and God’s Power or free Will. Tracking how divine Power has been reinvested in human beings provides a broader context for instrumentalism and related lineages of empiricism. But secularization can also transfer Power from God to the impersonal natural world. In this light, current scientific interest in lawlike order may also reflect the inherent value of brute necessity or inhuman causal power in nature: this is a deeper way to reject anthropocentrism and to show our respect for the environment. (shrink)

This paper makes the case for a pluralist, contextualist view of nursing ethics. In defending this view, I briefly outline two current perspectives of nursing ethics – the Traditional View and the Theory View. I argue that the Traditional View, which casts nursing ethics as a subcategory of healthcare ethics, is problematic because it (1) fails to sufficiently acknowledge the unique nature of nursing practice; and (2) applies standard ethical frameworks such as principlism to moral problems which tend to alienate (...) or undermine nursing ethical concerns. Alternatively, the Theory View, which aims to build an independent and comprehensive theory of nursing ethics, is also found wanting because it (1) fails to sufficiently acknowledge the heterogeneous nature of nursing practices; (2) overemphasizes the differences and undervalues the similarities between nurses and other health professionals; and (3) assumes that one ethical framework can be meaningfully applied across diverse moral problems and contexts.My alternative, is to argue that nursing ethics inquiry should take a pluralist and critical stance towards available ethical frameworks and the negotiation of the ethical realm. On this view, the search for moral consensus or a unique ethical framework for nursing is replaced by the task of working strategically with multiple frameworks in order to expand the moral agency of nurses and empower them to positively engage with moral uncertainty as an inevitable feature of living a moral life. I conclude by indicating some of the implications that this has for the teaching of nursing ethics. (shrink)

A sense of unity -- Basic objects : a reply to Xu -- Objectivity without objects -- The vagueness of identity -- Quantifier variance and realism -- Against revisionary ontology -- Comments on Theodore Sider's four dimensionalism -- Sosa's existential relativism -- Physical-object ontology, verbal disputes, and common sense -- Ontological arguments : interpretive charity and quantifier variance -- Language, ontology, and structure -- Ontology and alternative languages.

In this book, Eli Hirsch focuses on identity through time, first with respect to ordinary bodies, then underlying matter, and eventually persons.

Stoffregen & Bardy's target article is based on the assumption that our senses' ultimate purpose is to provide us with perfect information about the outside world. We argue that it is often more important that information be available quickly than that it be perfect. Consequently our nervous system processes different aspects of information about our surrounding as separately as possible. The separation is not between the senses, but between separate aspects of our surrounding. This results in inconsistencies between judgments: sometimes (...) because different frames of reference are used. Such inconsistencies are fundamental to the way the information is picked up, however, and hence cannot be avoided with clearer instructions to the subjects. (shrink)

Scientists often diverge widely when choosing between research programs. This can seem to be rooted in disagreements about which of several theories, competing to address shared questions or phenomena, is currently the most epistemically or explanatorily valuable—i.e. most successful. But many such cases are actually more directly rooted in differing judgments of pursuit-worthiness, concerning which theory will be best down the line, or which addresses the most significant data or questions. Using case studies from 16th-century astronomy and 20th-century geology and (...) biology, I argue that divergent theory choice is thus often driven by considerations of scientific process, even where direct epistemic or explanatory evaluation of its final products appears more relevant. Broadly following Kuhn’s analysis of theoretical virtues, I suggest that widely shared criteria for pursuit-worthiness function as imprecise, mutually-conflicting values. However, even Kuhn and others sensitive to pragmatic dimensions of theory ‘acceptance’, including the virtue of fruitfulness, still commonly understate the role of pursuit-worthiness—especially by exaggerating the impact of more present-oriented virtues, or failing to stress how ‘competing’ theories excel at addressing different questions or data. This framework clarifies the nature of the choice and competition involved in theory choice, and the role of alternative theoretical virtues. (shrink)

In this important volume Habermas outlines the views which form the basis of his critical theory of modern societies. The volume comprises five interlocking essays, which together define the contours of his theory of communication and of his substantive account of social change. ′What is Universal Pragmatics?′ is the best available statement of Habermas′s programme for a theoryof communication based on the analysis of speech acts. In the following two essays Habermas draws on the work of Kohlberg and others to (...) develop a distinctive account of moral consciousness and normative structures. ′Toward a Reconstruction of historical Materialsim′ takes these issues further, offering a wide–ranging reconstruction of Marx′s historical materialsim understood as a theory of social evolution. The final essay focuses on the question of legitimacy and on the legitimation problems faced by modern states. This book is essential reading for anyone concerned with the key questions of social and political theory today. (shrink)

This book proposes a new theory of the origins of human language ability and presents an original account of the early evolution of language. It explains why humans are the only language-using animals, challenges the assumption that language is a consequence of intelligence, and offers a new perspective on human uniqueness. The author draws on evidence from archaeology, linguistics, cognitive science, and evolutionary biology. Making no assumptions about the reader's prior knowledge he first provides an introductory but critical survey of (...) all sources of evidence for language evolution. He then considers what language itself reveals about its own and human origins and evolution. He shows that certain central aspects of language do not, unexpectedly, reflect what they are used for, are maladapted for their function. He considers why this should be, and argues that these odd aspects of language reveal important clues about its evolutionary origin. The Origins of Complex Language fulfils the promise of its title. In doing so it turns upside down conventional theories about the relation between cognition and expression, truth and reference, and the co-evolution of mind and body. Original in conception, brilliantly executed, stylishly written, this book will attract a wide range of readers interested in the evolution and origins of language. (shrink)

Eli Alshanetsky considers how we make our thoughts clear to ourselves in the process of putting them into words and examines the paradox of those difficult cases where we do not already know what we are struggling to articulate.

The central question in this book is why it seems reasonable for the words of our language to divide up the world in ordinary ways rather than other imaginable ways. Hirsch calls this the division problem. His book aims to bring this problem into sharp focus, to distinguish it from various related problems, and to consider the best prospects for solving it. In exploring various possible responses to the division problem, Hirsch examines series of "division principles" which purport to express (...) rational constraints on how our words ought to classify and individuate. The ensuing discussion deals with a wide range of metaphysical and epistemological topics, including projectibility and similarity, alternative analyses of natural properties and things, the inscrutability of reference, and the relevance of such pragmatic notions as salience and economy. The final chapters of the book develop what Hirsch contends is the most promising response to the division problem: a theory in which constraints on classification and individuation are seen to derive from the necessary structure of "fine-grained" propositions and the necessary dependence of some concepts on others. (shrink)

sefer ḳeṭan ha-kamut ṿe-rav ha-eikhut kolel ʻinyene musar ṿe-hadrakhah be-ʻavodat ha-shem yitbarakh ṿe-hanhagot ṭovot...be-tosefet tsiyune marʼeh meḳomot mi-tanakh ume-ḥazal.

Philosophers often assume that we can somehow quantitatively measure how good things are for people. But what does such talk mean? And what are the measures? In *Weighing Goods* John Broome offers one treatment of these questions. In his later *Weighing Lives* he offers a different treatment. This article discusses both positions but advocates a third. But while the three positions disagree about matters of meaning, they agree about the form of the measures. Roughly speaking, they are such that the (...) goodness of a lottery for an individual is equal to its expected goodness for her. (shrink)

According to the Counterfactual Comparative Account of harm and benefit, an event is overall harmful for a subject to the extent that this subject would have been better off if it had not occurred. In this paper we present a challenge for the Counterfactual Comparative Account. We argue that if physical processes are chancy in the manner suggested by our best physical theories, then CCA faces a dilemma: If it is developed in line with the standard approach to counterfactuals, then (...) it delivers that the value of any event for a subject is indeterminate to the extreme, ranging from terribly harmful to highly beneficial. This problem can only be avoided by developing CCA in line with theories of counterfactuals that allow us to ignore a-typical scenarios. Doing this generates a different problem: when the actual world is itself a-typical we will sometimes get the result that the counterfactual nonoccurrence of an actual benefit is itself a benefit. An account of overall harm bearing either of these two implications is deficient. Given the general aspiration to account for deprivational harms and the dominance of the Counterfactual Comparative Account in this respect, theorists of harm and benefit face a deadlock. (shrink)

In this unique and comprehensive book, George McCarthy examines the influence of Greek philosophy, literature, arts, and politics on the development of twentieth-century German social thought. McCarthy demonstrates that the classical spirit vitalized thinkers such as Weber, Heidegger, Freud, Marcuse, Arendt, Gadamer, and Habermas. With the romancing of antiquity, they transformed their understanding of the modern self, political community, and Enlightenment rationality. By viewing contemporary social theory from the framework of the classical world, McCarthy argues, we are (...) capable of thinking beyond the limits of modernity to new possibilities of human reason, science, beauty, and social justice. (shrink)

I argue that Nietzsche’s criticism of the Kantian theory of disinterested pleasure in beauty reflects his own commitment to claims that closely resemble certain Kantian aesthetic principles, specifically as reinterpreted by Schiller. I show that Schiller takes the experience of beauty to be disinterested both (1) insofar as it involves impassioned ‘play’ rather than desire-driven ‘work’, and (2) insofar as it involves rational-sensuous (‘aesthetic’) play rather than mere physical play. In figures like Nietzsche, Schiller’s generic notion of play—which is itself (...) influenced by Kant’s claim that aesthetic pleasure is orthogonal to desire-satisfaction—becomes decoupled from his (further) Kantian view that aesthetic play essentially involves a harmony of sensuous receptivity and rational spontaneity. The result, I suggest, is a self-standing opposition between desires and passions. This motivates a recognizably Romantic vision of aesthetic disinterestedness, as freedom from desire realized in a state of creative determination by passion. (shrink)

Two main claims are defended in this paper: first, that typical disputes in the literature about the ontology of physical objects are merely verbal; second, that the proper way to resolve these disputes is by appealing to common sense or ordinary language. A verbal dispute is characterized not in terms of private idiolects, but in terms of different linguistic communities representing different positions. If we imagine a community that makes Chisholm's mereological essentialist assertions, and another community that makes Lewis's four-dimensionalist (...) assertions, the members of each community speak the truth in their respective languages. This follows from an application of the principle of interpretive charity to the two communities. (shrink)

In this unique philosophical critique of modern Western civilization, Adams argues that contemporary culture is deranged by false assumptions about the human mind. He sees a growing gap between the subjectivistic culture and the structure of reality which has not only produced Originally published 1975. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered (...) from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value. (shrink)

What determines the degree to which some event harms a subject? According to the counterfactual comparative account, an event is harmful for a subject to the extent that she would have been overall better off if it had not occurred. Unlike the causation based account, this view nicely accounts for deprivational harms, including the harm of death, and for cases in which events constitute a harm rather than causing it. However, I argue, it ultimately fails, since not every intrinsically bad (...) state that is counterfactually dependent on an event contributes to its degree of harm. So while the causation based account is too restrictive, the counterfactual comparative view is not restrictive enough. In light of this, I suggest an alternative, explanation based account of overall harm, according to which the degree to which some event is harmful for a subject is determined by the degree to which (crudely) the states explained by it are overall more intrinsically bad than intrinsically good for her. (shrink)

Philosophers have cataloged a range of genealogical methods by which different sorts of normative conclusions can be established. Although such methods provide diverging ways of pursuing genealogical inquiry, they typically converge in eschewing historiographic methodology, in favor of a uniquely philosophical approach. In contrast, one genealogist who drew on historiographic methodology is Michel Foucault. This article presents the motivations and advantages of Foucault's genealogical use of such a methodology. It advances two mains claims. First, that Foucault's early 1970s work employs (...) a distinct genealogical method, which borrows from contemporary historiographic models of explanation to expand the range of objects that are proper to genealogical accounts of historical change. I demonstrate how Foucault modifies two central commitments of Nietzsche by broadening the dimensions of genealogical inquiry and explanation. Second, that historical method has normative relevance for genealogy, insofar as different historiographic choices can lead to different normative conclusions. I motivate this second claim by explaining how Foucault's multidimensional genealogical method expands both (a) the range of objects that are subject to evaluative assessment, and (b) the set of possible prescriptive recommendations that follow from such assessment. (shrink)

To clarify the proper role of values in science, focusing on controversial expert responses to Covid-19, this article examines the status of (in)convenient hypotheses. Polarizing cases like health experts downplaying mask efficacy to save resources for healthcare workers, or scientists dismissing “accidental lab leak” hypotheses in view of potential xenophobia, plausibly involve modifying evidential standards for (in)convenient claims. Societies could accept that scientists handle (in)convenient claims just like nonscientists, and give experts less political power. Or societies could hold scientists to (...) a higher bar, by expecting them not to modify evidential standards to avoid costs only incidentally tied to error. (shrink)

Argues for a humanistic cultural reformation to counter our materialistic values and science-dominated intellectual life and shows how this would affect our lives and transform our society.

The Metaphysics of Self and World is a philosophical exploration of the relationship between the individual, the culture, and the world.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A New Look at Animal-to-Human Organ TransplantationCharles R. McCarthy (bio)The acute shortage of organs available for transplantation into human beings combined with a new scientific understanding of the immune systems of both humans and animals make it probable that animal-to-human solid organ transplants (xenografts) may soon be attempted at a frequency rate unknown in the past. 1 Optimism about successful animal-to-human organ transplantation is greater than at any (...) previous time. The creation of a reliable supply of animal organs appears to be technically feasible. At least five major transplant centers in the United States are currently considering plans to pursue xenotransplantation. Although, at the time of this writing, no federal guidelines prohibit animal-to-human organ transplantation, the institutions considering such programs are awaiting deliberations on the subject by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).The demand for organs suitable for transplantation into human beings greatly exceeds the supply. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS 1996a), approximately 44,000 patients in the United states awaited organ transplantation at the end of 1995. In 1994, more than 3,000 patients died while on the transplant waiting list, and the demand for transplantable organs increases annually (UNOS 1996b). The figures do not include the hundreds or perhaps thousands of patients who could profit from a transplant, but who do not meet the requirements of the UNOS waiting list. Even if efforts to persuade persons to donate organs are redoubled, and even if the consent to donate organs should become a legal presumption, there is little prospect of developing a sufficient supply of transplantable human organs to meet the growing demand.As technical and biological barriers to successful animal-to-human xenografts are lowered, the prospect of raising dedicated colonies of animals, genetically altered to reduce the chances that human hosts will reject organs derived from them, is being seriously discussed. 2 Such colonies do not exist at the present time. [End Page 183] However, if new techniques for animal-to-human transplantation prove successful, it is likely that animal colonies will be established to provide a ready and predictable supply of organs for transplantation to humans. Some believe that commercial investment in colonies of purpose-bred animals to serve as a source of transplantable organs is close at hand (Leventhal 1994).New drugs and new combinations of existing drugs have improved the chances of successful medical outcomes for patients who receive solid organ transplants. It is now recognized that serial application of immunosuppressive drugs can reduce the likelihood of both short- and long-term organ rejection (Makowka 1994). Improved understanding of both human and animal immune systems, insights into histocompatibility, new agents to control graft-versus-host disease, animal breeding programs for the production of transgenic animals, and improved surgical techniques have opened, as never before, the possibility of successful transfer of organs from animals to humans. Some rate the chances of good patient outcomes (usually measured in terms of time of patient survival) as high, others make more conservative predictions, but virtually all experts believe that the chances for successful human patient outcomes resulting from xenotransplantation are improved. Because many patients face immanent death unless their organs can be replaced, there can be little doubt that many humans will readily consent to xenotransplantation.History Suggests CautionDespite the advances in immunosuppression, the frequency of failure in past animal-to-human xenograft attempts should temper the optimism of the transplant community. To date, all efforts to prolong human life by implanting solid organs from animals into human recipients have failed. The first attempts at animal-to-human xenotransplantation early in the twentieth century resulted in the early death of all recipients (Neuhof 1923). More sophisticated efforts at xenotransplantation occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a period when anti-rejection drugs began to make allografts more feasible. Although one human recipient of a xenograft survived for nine months (with poor quality of life), most patients died within a matter of minutes, hours, or a few days following the transplantation of organs from chimpanzees or baboons (Starzl... (shrink)

Two main claims are defended in this paper: first, that typical disputes in the literature about the ontology of physical objects are merely verbal; second, that the proper way to resolve these disputes is by appealing to common sense or ordinary language. A verbal dispute is characterized not in terms of private idiolects, but in terms of different linguistic communities representing different positions. If we imagine a community that makes Chisholm's mereological essentialist assertions, and another community that makes Lewis's four‐dimensionalist (...) assertions, the members of each community speak the truth in their respective languages. This follows from an application of the principle of interpretive charity to the two communities. (shrink)