This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

This paper presents my personal convictions, as an Evangelical, regarding the absolute impropriety of doctor-assisted suicide for Christians. They have been “bought with a price” and are owned by Another. Hence, they must always strive to glorify God in their bodies, both in life and in death. Although they crave the well-being of temporal health, when they are ill seek healing or relief, and may well recoil even from the thought of suffering and dying, they should realize that their (...) values and priorities must be rooted in biblical truths and that their well-being is eternal and not temporal, spiritual and not material. As Christians, their attitudes and responses to suffering and dying must be molded by the reality that their Creator and Sovereign will cause all things to work together for their good and that their Lord has called them into a fellowship of His suffering in which they are sustained by dependence upon Him. Hence, for Christians to take their lives in order to escape from the trials and testings ordained by Him would be a failure of love and a breach of trust. (shrink)

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

Context The attitudes of medical professionals towards physician assisted dying have been widely discussed. Less explored is the level of agreement among physicians on the possibility of ‘rational suicide’—a considered suicide act made by a sound mind and a precondition of assisted dying legislation. Objective To assess attitudes towards rational suicide in a representative sample of senior doctors in England and Wales. Methods A postal survey was conducted of 1000 consultants and general practitioners randomly selected from a commercially available database. (...) The main outcome of interest was level of agreement with a statement about rational suicide. Results The corrected participation rate was 50%; 363 questionnaires were analysed. Overall 72% of doctors agreed with the possibility of rational suicide, 17% disagreed, and 11% were neutral. Doctors who identified themselves as being more religious were more likely to disagree. Some doctors who disagreed with legalisation of physician assisted suicide nevertheless agreed with the concept of rational suicide. Conclusions Most senior doctors in England and Wales feel that rational suicide is possible. There was no association with specialty. Strong religious belief was associated with disagreement, although levels of agreement were still high in people reporting the strongest religious belief. Most doctors who were opposed to physician assisted suicide believed that rational suicide was possible, suggesting that some medical opposition is best explained by other factors such as concerns of assessment and protection of vulnerable patients. (shrink)

MEDIEVAL LOGICS LAMBERT MARIE DE RIJK (ed.), Die mittelalterlichen Traktate De mod0 opponendiet respondendi, Einleitung und Ausgabe der einschlagigen Texte. (Beitrage zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, Neue Folge Band 17.) Miinster: Aschendorff, 1980. 379 pp. No price stated. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY MARTA FATTORI, Lessico del Novum Organum di Francesco Bacone. Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo 1980. Two volumes, il + 543, 520 pp. Lire 65.000. VIVIAN SALMON, The study of language in 17th century England. (Amsterdam Studies in the (...) Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Series 111: Studies in theHistory of Linguistics, Volume 17.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins B.V., 1979.x + 218 pp. Dfl. 65. Theoria cum Praxi. Zum Verhaltnis von Theorie und Praxis im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. (Akten des 111. Internationalen Leibnizkongress, Hannover, 12. bis 17.November 1977, Band 111: Logik, Erkenntnistheorie, Wissenschaftstheorie, Metaphysik, Theologie.) Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1980. vii + 269 pp. DM 48. CLASSICAL AND NON-CLASSICAL LOGICS MICHAEL CLARK, The place of syllogistic in logical theory. Nottingham: University of Nottingham Press, 1980. ix + 151 pp. £3.00. A.F. PARKER-RHODES, The theory of indistinguishables. Dordrecht, Boston and London: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1981. xvii + 216 pp. Dfl.90.00/$39.50. NICHOLAS RESCHER and ROBERT BRANDOM, The logic of inconsistency. Oxford:Basil Blackwell, 1980. x + 174 pp. f 11.50. MISCELLANEOUS J. ZELENY, The logic of Marx. Translated from the German by T. Carver. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980. xcii + 247 pp. £12.50. FELIX KAUFMANN, The infinite in mathematics. Edited by Brian McGuinness. Introduction by E. Nagel. Translation from the German by Paul Foulkes. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1978. xvii + 235 pp. Dfl 85/$39.50 (cloth); Dfl 45/$19.95 (paper). PAMELA MCCORDUCK, Machines who think. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1979. xiv + 275 pp. $14.95. J. MITTELSTRASS (ed.), Enzyklopadie Philosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie Bd. 1 : A-G. Mannheim, Wien, Ziirich: Bibliographisches Institut, 1980. 835 pp. DM 128. (shrink)

This paper explores gender differences in “make-up” and “suspicion” in a bargaining game in which the privately informed seller of a company sends a value message to the uninformed potential buyer who then proposes a price for the company. “Make-up” is measured by how much the true value is overstated, “suspicion” by how much the price offer differs from the value message. We run different computerized treatments varying in information about the gender and in embeddedness of gender information. (...) The asymmetry of the game and of information allows for a robust assessment of gender effects. We report here the results from just one shot round decision since we expect such effects to be more pronounced for inexperienced participants. We mainly find an effect of gender constellation: when female sellers are aware to confront a female buyer, they overstate more, i.e. there is more “make-up”. However, we cannot confirm gender effects for suspicion. (shrink)

Farm to school programs are at the vanguard of efforts to create an alternative agrifood system in the United States. Regionally-based, mid-tier food distributors may play an important role in harnessing the potential of farm to school programs to create viable market opportunities for small- and mid-size family farmers, while bringing more locally grown fresh food to school cafeterias. This paper focuses on the perspectives of food distributors. Our findings suggest that the food distributors profiled have the potential to help (...) institutionalize farm to school programs. Notably, their relationships with farmers may be a critical element in expanding the scale and scope of local school food procurement. Their ability to catalyze local school food procurement however, is limited by the structural context in which farm to school programs operate. Specifically, the oppositional school year and agriculture production cycle, and tight food service budget constraints disembed and limit the potential of farm to school programs to decrease the “marketness” of school food procurement and to shift it from a process based largely on price to one that is more territorially embedded. As farm to school programs continue to gain support, regionally-based food distributors that have the meaningful relationships necessary to re-embed the school food service market back into the larger society may be critical to enabling advocates to achieve their goals. (shrink)

The paper studies the impact of informational ambiguity on behalf of informed traders on history-dependent price behaviour in a model of sequential trading in financial markets. Following Chateauneuf et al., we use neo-additive capacities to model ambiguity. Such ambiguity and attitudes to it can engender herd and contrarian behaviour, and also cause the market to break down. The latter, herd and contrarian behaviour, can be reduced by the existence of a bid-ask spread.

This thought-provoking book discusses the concept of progress in economics and investigates whether any advance has been made in its different spheres of research. The authors look back at the history, successes and failures of their respective fields and thoroughly examine the notion of progress from an epistemological and methodological perspective. The idea of progress is particularly significant as the authors regard it as an essentially contested concept which can be defined in many ways – theoretically or empirically; locally or (...) globally; or as encouraging or impeding the existence of other research traditions. The authors discuss the idea that for progress to make any sense there must be an accumulation of knowledge built up over time rather than the replacement of ideas by each successive generation. Accordingly, they are not concerned with estimating the price of progress, reminiscing in the past, or assessing what has been lost. Instead they apply the complex mechanisms and machinery of the discipline to sub-fields such as normative economics, monetary economics, trade and location theory, Austrian economics and classical economics to critically assess whether progress has been made in these areas of research. -/- Bringing together authoritative and wide-ranging contributions by leading scholars, this book will challenge and engage those interested in philosophy, economic methodology and the history of economic thought. It will also appeal to economists in general who are interested in the advancement of their profession. (shrink)