ABSTRACT In his paper ‘The Survival Lottery’John Harris suggested that there could be situations where the rational thing to do would be to kill a healthy person and harvest his organs for transplantation, thereby saving several lives at the cost of one. Anne Maclean claims that such a proposal, far from being rational, does not qualify as a moral proposal at all since what it suggests is ‘plain murder’. I argue that she is correct to claim that the proposal is (...) not uniquely rational and that doctors could quite rationally reject it, but that she overreaches herself when she holds it not to be a moral proposal at all. (shrink)

I argue that the distinction which is current in much writing on medical ethics between autonomous and non-autonomous patients cannot cope comfortably with weak-willed (incontinent) patients. I describe a case involving a patient who refuses a blood transfusion even though he or she agrees that it would be in his or her best interests. The case is discussed in the light of the treatment of autonomy by B Brody and R Gillon. These writers appear to force us to treat an (...) incontinent patient either as autonomous, just like a rational agent whose decisions are in accordance with his beliefs or as non-autonomous, like comatose patients or children. Though neither is entirely satisfactory I opt for describing such patients as autonomous but point out that in cases like this the principle of respect for autonomy does not give a determinate answer about how the patient ought to be treated. (shrink)

PLATO: PROTAGORAS, trans, with Notes by C. C. W. Taylor. Clarendon Press: O.U.P., 1976. vii+230 pp. £7.50 cloth, £3.75 paper.

I argue that the distinction which is current in much writing on medical ethics between autonomous and non-autonomous patients cannot cope comfortably with weak-willed patients. I describe a case involving a patient who refuses a blood transfusion even though he or she agrees that it would be in his or her best interests. The case is discussed in the light of the treatment of autonomy by B Brody and R Gillon. These writers appear to force us to treat an incontinent (...) patient either as autonomous, just like a rational agent whose decisions are in accordance with his beliefs or as non-autonomous, like comatose patients or children. Though neither is entirely satisfactory I opt for describing such patients as autonomous but point out that in cases like this the principle of respect for autonomy does not give a determinate answer about how the patient ought to be treated. (shrink)

Recent interest in ethical pluralism derives from Isaiah Berlin's reflections on the writings of Vico and Herder and their opposition to the views of the Enlightenment. I begin with two quotations from Berlin: It is not relativism. Members of one culture can, by the force of imaginative insight, understand … the values, the ideals, the forms of life of another culture or society, even those remote in time or space. They may find these values unacceptable, but if they open their (...) minds sufficiently they can grasp how one might be a full human being, with whom one could communicate, and at the same time live in the light of values widely different from one's own, but which nevertheless one can see to be values, ends of life, by the realisation of which men could be fulfilled. (shrink)

_Verificationism_ is the first comprehensive history of a concept that dominated philosophy and scientific methodology between the 1930s and the 1960s. The verificationist principle - the concept that a belief with no connection to experience is spurious - is the most sophisticated version of empiricism. More flexible ideas of verification are now being rehabilitated by a number of philosophers. C.J. Misak surveys the precursors, the main proponents and the rehabilitators. Unlike traditional studies, she follows verificationist theory beyond the demise of (...) positivism to examine its reappearance in the work of modern philosophers. Most interestingly, she argues that despite feminism's strenuous opposition to positivism, verificationist thought is at the heart of much of contemporary feminist philosophy. _Verificationism_ is an excellent assessment of a major and influential system of thought. (shrink)

In his celebrated masterpiece, Symposium, Plato imagines a high-society dinner-party in Athens in 416 BC at which the guests - including the comic poet Aristophanes and, of course, Plato's mentor Socrates - each deliver a short speech in praise of love. The sequence of dazzling speeches culminates in Socrates' famous account of the views of Diotima, a prophetess who taught him that love is our means of trying to attain goodness. And then into the party bursts the drunken Alcibiades, the (...) most popular and notorious Athenian of the time, who insists on praising Socrates himself rather than love, and gives us a brilliant sketch of this enigmatic character. The power, humour, and pathos of Plato's creation engages the reader on every page. This new translation is complemented by full explanatory notes and an illuminating introduction. (shrink)

"This edition, which replaces the original Loeb edition..., offers text, translation, and annotation that are fully current with modern scholarship"--Front flap of dust jacket, volume 1.

least this was his later view. He had begun with the more obvious but more naive view that need was the key to the process and that removal of the need ...

C.J. Bartley places Ramunuja in his intellectual context. This study is particularly concerned with Ramanuja's engagement with opposing schools of thought and practice, rendering it a valuable contribution to the history of Indian thought.

This edition of Martin Ostwald's revised version of J. B. Skemp's 1952 translation of _Statesman_ includes a new selected bibliography, as well as Ostwald's interpretive introduction, which traces the evolution in Plato's political philosophy from _Republic_ to _Statesman to Laws_--from philosopher-king to royal statesman.

Classifying the Zhuangzi Chapters . Liu Xiaogan, trans, by William E. Savage, 1994, Ann Arbor, Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, xxii + 217 pp., ISBN 0 89264 106 1.

The social, educational and political writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau have become enormously influential in the 200 years since his death. But the breadth as well as the depth of Rousseau's achievement - he was amongst other things a creative writer and musical composer as well as a philosopher - is not always appreciated. In around 100 articles, alphabetically arranged and fully cross-referenced, N. J. H. Dent explores all facets of Rousseau's work and thoughts, while his subject's remarkable life is summarized (...) in a biographical introduction. Details of works by and about Rousseau are listed in an extensive bibliography. For students or general readers seeking an introduction to Rousseau's work, and for those already familiar with the material who require a convenient reference source, this dictionary is essential reading. (shrink)

This book describes a program of research in computable structure theory. The goal is to find definability conditions corresponding to bounds on complexity which persist under isomorphism. The results apply to familiar kinds of structures (groups, fields, vector spaces, linear orderings Boolean algebras, Abelian p-groups, models of arithmetic). There are many interesting results already, but there are also many natural questions still to be answered. The book is self-contained in that it includes necessary background material from recursion theory (ordinal notations, (...) the hyperarithmetical hierarchy) and model theory (infinitary formulas, consistency properties). (shrink)

Christology seems to fall fairly clearly into two divisions. The first is concerned with the truth of the two propositions: ‘Christ is God’ and ‘Christ is a man’. The second is concerned with the mutual compatibility of these propositions. The first part of Christology tends to confine itself to what is sometimes called ‘positive theology’: that is to say, it is largely given over to examining the Jons revelationis —let us not prejudge currently burning issues by asking what this is—to (...) see what evidence can be found for the truth of these propositions. Clearly, the methods used will be above all those of New Testament exegesis. The second part of Christology will necessarily consist entirely of that speculative theology which is contrasted with positive theology. Even if the earliest speculation on this topic is to be found in the New Testament itself and thus becomes fair game for the exegetes, any attempt to relate the primary truths, ‘Christ is God’ and ‘Christ is a man’, to eachother is a work of reflection, and in the terminology I am using speculative. (shrink)

Banking, in common with other areas of finance, is often considered an amoral field focused purely on risk and return. However, ethics does have an important role to play, both traditionally and as business and banking evolve. Based on a speech to a European Union conference on financing small and medium–sized enterprises (SMEs), this paper seeks to provide an overview of ethics in banking using three terms. Integrity is important to generate the trust necessary for any banking system to flourish, (...) responsibility highlights contemporary banks’ need to take into account the consequences of their lending policies, and affinity refers to a set of relatively novel ways in which depositors and borrowers can be brought closer together than they are in conventional western banking. (shrink)

Banking, in common with other areas of finance, is often considered an amoral field focused purely on risk and return. However, ethics does have an important role to play, both traditionally and as business and banking evolve. Based on a speech to a European Union conference on financing small and medium–sized enterprises , this paper seeks to provide an overview of ethics in banking using three terms. Integrity is important to generate the trust necessary for any banking system to flourish, (...) responsibility highlights contemporary banks’ need to take into account the consequences of their lending policies, and affinity refers to a set of relatively novel ways in which depositors and borrowers can be brought closer together than they are in conventional western banking. (shrink)