Following up on a 1989 paper on the subject, this essay revisits the question of ethical expertise in the court room. Informed by recent developments in the use of ethics experts, the authors argue 1) that the adversarial nature of court proceedings challenges the integrity of the ethicist's pedagogical role; 2) that the use of ethics experts as normative authorities remains dubious; 3) that clarification of the State's interest in “protecting the ethical integrity of the medical profession” is urgently required; (...) and 4) that the expertise of the ethicist may be more appropriately used in advising the legislature than in influencing the court. (shrink)

In the 11th chapter of the second book of Samuel, we read how King David saw Bathsheba in the evening: ‘v.2. And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.’.

In the years since World War II, the social critic has become a rather popular figure in the West. The demand for critical theories of society is readily explainable where the contradictions of social development take the form of sharp paradoxes recognized by the broad public. It may be assumed that interest in critical concepts of society will increase. People who recognize themselves as cogs without rights in the system of bureaucratic organization of state-supported monopoly capitalism, who react acutely to (...) the threat of social catastrophes , endow such concepts with the halo of humanism if only because they often find in them their own moods, given shape and seemingly elevated to the level of general social protest. These feelings represent a concrete dissatisfaction with the present situation, and the sense that the society in which they live is in crisis. (shrink)

Members of the family of the Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) are the only known type of natural pigments that are essentially encoded by a single gene, since both the substrate for pigment biosynthesis and the necessary catalytic moieties are provided within a single polypeptide chain. In sharp contrast to the state of knowledge just three years ago when GFP was the only known protein of its kind, a whole family of related proteins, exhibiting striking diversity of features have now been (...) identified. This provides new possibilities for a variety of studies ranging from applied biotechnology to evolutionary ecology. BioEssays 24:953–959, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

For decades, aged care facility residents at risk of pressure ulcers (PUs) have been repositioned at two-hour intervals, twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week (24/7). Yet, PUs still develop. We used a cross-sectional survey of eighty randomly selected medical records of residents aged ≥ 65 years from eight Australian Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs) to determine the number of residents at risk of PUs, the use of two-hourly repositioning, and the presence of PUs in the last week of life. Despite 91 per cent (73/80) (...) of residents identified as being at risk of PUs and repositioned two-hourly 24/7, 34 per cent (25/73) died with one or more PUs. Behaviours of concern were noted in 72 per cent (58/80) of residents of whom 38 per cent (22/58) were restrained. Dementia was diagnosed in 70 per cent (56/80) of residents. The prevalence of behaviours of concern displayed by residents with dementia was significantly greater than by residents without dementia (82 per cent v 50 per cent, p = 0.028). The rate of restraining residents with dementia was similar to the rate in residents without dementia. Two-hourly repositioning failed to prevent PUs in a third of at-risk residents and may breach the rights of all residents who were repositioned two-hourly. Repositioning and restraining may be unlawful. Rather than only repositioning residents two-hourly, we recommend every resident be provided with an alternating pressure air mattress. (shrink)

This article will provide a critique of tworecent English marriage law decisions, thefirst concerning a (female to male) transgenderman and the second a (male to female)intersexed woman. It will do so throughconsideration of the dialogue between each andthe landmark transgender case of Corbett v. Corbett. It will highlight howboth decisions, in seeking to minimise the factof `departure' from Corbett, serve toreproduce key elements of that decision whichserve to undermine the future prospects fortransgender law reform in the English context.In particular, both (...) decisions, in differentways, or with different emphases, ensure that`legal sex' continues to be determined by(bio)logical and temporal factors. Crucially,however, as in Corbett, it is legalanxiety over the boundaries of the `natural',and the homophobia of law, that underscoresthis anxiety, that account for these particularconstructions of `legal sex'. (shrink)

Albert Camus’s 1947 novel La Peste and 1948 drama L’État de Siège, allegories of totalitarian power using the figure of the plague, remarkably anticipate Foucault’s celebrated genealogical analyses of modern power. Indeed, reading Foucault after Camus highlights a fact little-remarked in Discipline and Punish: namely, that the famous chapter on the ‘Panopticon’ begins by analysing the measures taken in early modern Vincennes following the advent of plague. Part III argues that, although Camus was cited as an inspiration by the nouveaux (...) philosophes, he does not accept the reactionary motif of the total bankruptcy of the modern cultural and political worlds as hopelessly implicated in the totalitarian crimes. Indeed, Part IV highlights how Camus defends modern, descriptive scientific rationality against its totalitarian appropriations, alongside ‘the power of passion, doubt, happiness, and imaginative invention’ – positions which Part V suggests as Camus’s continuing poignancy and relevance in the period after post-structuralism. (shrink)

Intuitively it has seemed to many that our concepts conscious state and conscious creature are sharp rather than vague, that they can have no borderline cases. On the other hand, many who take conscious states to be identical to, or realized by, complex physical states are committed to the vagueness of those concepts. In the paper I argue that conscious state and conscious creature are sharp by presenting four necessary conditions for conceiving borderline cases in general, and showing that some (...) of those conditions cannot be met with conscious state. I conclude that conscious state is sharp, and the conclusion is then extended to conscious creature. The paper ends with a brief discussion of some implications. (shrink)

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is central to John McDowell’s classic Mind and World. In Lectures IV and V of that work, McDowell makes three claims concerning Aristotle’s ethics: first, that Aristotle did not base his ethics on an externalist, naturalistic basis (including a theory of human nature); second, that attempts to read him as an ethical naturalist are a modern anachronism, generated by the supposed need to ground all viable philosophical claims on claims analogous to the natural sciences; and third, that (...) a suitably construed Aristotelian conception of “second nature” can form the basis of a viable contemporary philosophy of mind, world, and normativity. This paper challenges each of these three claims. Aristotle’s ethics, we will claim alongside Terence Irwin, Bernard Williams, Philippa Foot, and many premodern commentators, is based in the kind of physics, metaphysics, and metaphysical biology that McDowell says it cannot be. Historically, we will argue that McDowell’s argument that Aristotle’s ethical reasoning is “autonomous” or “self-standing” is distinctly modern, citing evidence from the leading medieval commentators on the Nicomachean Ethics. The felt need to which McDowell responds, of reading Aristotle’s ethical or political thought as wholly non-metaphysical, arises from out of the successes of the natural sciences in the modern world, which he agrees discredit the Aristotelian, teleological account of nature. In the final part of the paper, we propose that McDowell’s account of normativity, rooted in the non-metaphysical “second nature” he reads into Aristotle, we will contend, is as it stands inescapably relativistic. On a different note, we need also to recognize, as McDowell does not, that this is a new Aristotle, one shaped by our requirements and space of reasons, not the mind and world of the Greek Philosopher himself.
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Within health care systems, negative perceptions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons have often translated into denial of services, denial of visitation rights to same‐sex partners, reluctance on the part of LGBT patients to share personal information, and failure of workers to assess and recognize the unique health care needs of these patients. Other bureaucratic forms of exclusion have included documents, forms, and policies that fail to acknowledge a patient's valued relationships because of, for example, a narrow definition of (...) “spouse,” “parent,” or “family.” Bureaucratic exclusion has taken a particularly prominent form in the U.S. military. Until its repeal and termination in 2011, the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy had for eighteen years barred openly gay men and lesbians from serving in the military. Among the effects of DADT is a dearth of information about the number and needs of LGBT service members who transition to the Veterans Health Administration for health care at the end of their military service. The long‐standing social stigma against LGBT persons, the silence mandated by DADT, and the often unrecognized bias built into the fabric of bureaucratic systems make the task of creating a welcoming culture in the VHA urgent and challenging.The VHA has accepted a commitment to that task. Its Strategic Plan for fiscal years 2013 through 2018 stipulates that “[v]eterans will receive timely, high quality, personalized, safe, effective and equitable health care irrespective of geography, gender, race, age, culture or sexual orientation.” To achieve this goal, the VHA undertook a number of coordinated initiatives to create an environment and culture that is informed, welcoming, positive, and empowering for the LGBT veterans and families whom the agency serves. (shrink)

W. V. Quine is one of the most eminent philosophers alive today. Now in his mid-eighties he has produced a sharp, sprightly book that encapsulates the whole of his philosophical enterprise, including his thinking on all the key components of his epistemological stance--especially the value of logic and mathematics. New readers of Quine may have to go slowly, fathoming for themselves the richness that past readers already know lies between these elegant lines. For the faithful there is much to ponder. (...) In this short book, based on lectures delivered in Spain in 1990, Quine begins by locating his work historically. He provides a lightning tour of the history of philosophy (particularly the history of epistemology), beginning with Plato and culminating in an appreciative sketch of Carnap's philosophical ambitions and achievements. This leads, in the second chapter, to an introduction to Quine's attempt to naturalize epistemology, which emphasizes his continuities with Carnap rather than the differences between them. The next chapters develop the naturalistic story of the development of science to take account of how our conceptual apparatus is enhanced so that we can view the world as containing re-identifiable objects. Having explained the role of observation sentences in providing a checkpoint for assessing scientific theories, and having despaired of constructing an empirical criterion to determine which sentences are meaningful, Quine in the remaining chapters takes up a variety of important issues about knowledge. He concludes with an extended treatment of his views about reference and meaning and his attitudes toward psychological and modal notions. The presentation is distinctive, and the many small refinements of detail and formulation will fascinate all who know Quine's philosophy. (shrink)

A modern stage of globalization is a historical and logical continuation of “an economical social formation” (K.G. Marx), a civilization (L.G. Morgan). The analysis of this globalization in philosophy and social sciences has an extremely contradictory character which is law-governed in the modern society. Modern globalization has been showing itself as a qualitatively new historical process since 1991. Judging from the positions of the dialectical materialistic theory of history (K.G. Marx, F. Engels, V.I. Lenin and others) it by its essence (...) has got a postneoimperialistic, antagonistic character. It’s main features, attributes has been revealed. It doesn’t solve any sharp global problems, but only aggravated and intensifies them. This globalization has greatly increased, made inhuman the process of “cosmopolitization” which developed during the whole existence of capitalism and imperialism. A total degradation and dehumanization of a social person have been taking place, interstate and civil burst into flames, mass disturbances arise, hundreds thousands of people die, genocide and depopulation of some peoples on the planet become “normal” including the countries of the UIS. Destructive process of modern globalization with the USA as the main “player” together with corresponding international institutions (WTO, ICF, World bank, NATO and other), TNC have been resisted in a definite way by antiglobalizing andalterglobalizing movement in many countries on the planet. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the analysis of the relationship between right and law. The author identifies four types of understanding of right: positivist, natural-legal, general social, and the point of view of educational literature. These four types belong to different paradigms of understanding: the philosophical one (theory of natural right) and the legal one (three other points of view). The philosophy of right as a purely philosophical and not a legal discipline uses a philosophical approach to the substantiation of (...) the essence of right. Its fundamental thesis: it is impossible to prove the claims of the right to general validity and obligation if we use the framework of jurisprudence only. In this regard, the statist positivism is subjected to sharp criticism as a theory that rejects the essential difference between right and law and identifies right and law with the activities of the state alone. In philosophy, the right is understood as a system of values that includes fundamental moral and legal ideas and principles. The difference between right and law, their necessary dualism lies in the difference in their genetic nature. The right consists mainly of values that are inherently regulative, whereas the law is a set of norms that have a constitutive essence. This distinction between values and norms and, therefore, between the regulative as such and the constitutive is precisely the philosophical basis for the distinction between right and law. The essence of the regulative as such is based on ontological attitudes of consciousness, which are a priori in their origin. The article concludes with a classification of the functions of right with regard to law. (shrink)

We considered peculiarities of the evolution of a region with sharp boundaries that is filled with a partially ionized plasma and is a part of the volume of a condensed target. The creation of such a region in the near-surface layer of the target can be related to the action of an external impulse symmetric ionizator or to the action of an intense small-extension shock wave on the target surface. We defined the conditions such that their fulfilment during the establishment (...) of the equilibrium between the Coulomb attraction of electrons and ions with atom ionization multiplicity Z* 1 and the kinetic pressure of electrons causes both the compression of this region and its ionization to the state with Z* 2 > Z* 1. The last leads to a further additional compression and ionization. Under these conditions, the spontaneous avalanche-like ionization of atoms of the target to the state of ‘‘bare’’ nuclei occurs synchronously with the avalanche-like metallization and the self-compression of the target. We showed that the avalanche-like ionization and the self-compression of the target happen in the case where the gas of degenerate electrons has drift momentum. If the region with initial ionization has the form of thin spherical layer, the process of avalanche-like ionization and self-compression of the target in this region is accompanied by the accelerated movement of the plasma layer to the target center. One of the reasons for the accelerated movement is the surface tension in a bounded domain of the nonequilibrium plasma layer neutralized by ions of the target. With increase in the velocity of movement of this layer to the target center, the additional self-compression of the system of electrons and nuclei to the state of degenerate electron gas occurs. At the leading edge of the running layer with extremely high electron density which is neutralized by nuclei of the target, the formation of a collapse of the electron--nucleus system proceeds, and the binding energy maximum for the electron--nucleus system shifts from A≈60 to A ≫ 60. This result makes possible the fast synthesis of superheavy nuclei. The decay of the collapse state, a partial restoration of the target structure, its rapid cooling, and the condensation of a part of the products of nuclear reactions happen in the target volume at the trailing edge of the moving plasma layer. Upon such a scanning propagation of the wave with high electron density, all the target substance is involved, step-by-step, to the process of nuclear transformations. At the target center, the moving plasma layer is squeezed with the formation of the state of quasistationary collapse under inertial confinement. Then the collapse state decays irreversibly. (shrink)

Studies in philosophy: I. Tufts, J.H. On moral evolution. II. Willcos, W.F. The expansion of Europe in its influence upon population. III. Woods, R.A. Democracy a new unfolding of human power. IV. Sharp, F.C. An analysis of the moral judgment. V. Woodbridge, F.J.E. The problem of consciousness. VI. Norton, E.L. The intellectual element in music. VII. Raub, W.L. Pragmatism and Kantianism. VIII. Lyman, E.W. The influence of pragmatism upon the status of theology.--Studies in psychology: IX. Delabarre, E.B. Influence of surrounding (...) objects on the apparent direction of a line. X. Swift, E.J. Beginning a language; a contribution to the psychology of learning. XI. Pierce, A.H. An appeal from the prevailing doctrine of a detached subconsciousness. XII. Woodworth, R.S. The cause of a voluntary movement. XIII. Burnett, C.T. An experimental test of the classical theory of volition. (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)

The recent debate in philosophy of mind over whether thought has its own distinctive phenomenology, so-called cognitive phenomenology, has led to a sharp division between proponents and skeptics of CP. This paper critically examines an ambitious argument against the existence of CP, which is based on a particular view of the temporal structure of thought. The argument, roughly, is that experiences, those mental entities that have phenomenology, persist as processes, while thoughts, on the other hand, are non-processive states or events. (...) So no thoughts are experiences. The present paper attacks the claim that thoughts never temporally unfold as processes. (shrink)

The relationship between Legal Realism and Legal Positivism has been a recurrent source of debate. The question has been further complicated by the related difficulty of assessing the internal relationship between the two main original strands of Legal Realism: American and Scandinavian. This paper suggests considering American and Scandinavian Realism as instantiations of forward-looking and backward-looking rule skepticism respectively. This distinction brings into sharp relief not only the fundamentally different relationship between each of these two Realist schools and Legal Positivism (...) but also their equally different potentials as starting points for naturalizing jurisprudence. (shrink)

The specificity of tantric soteriology consists of a combination of three basic principles - unity, salvation, and bliss. This article explores the principle of salvation. Spiritual liberation implies the final overcoming of obstacles hindering the new worldview. Unlike the principle of unity, the principle of salvation focuses on difference, not on identity, drawing a sharp line between the desired state of liberation and the present state of dependence. The main obstacles to spiritual liberation are expressed in the well-known triad “avidyā (...) - karma - saṃsāra”. The principle of salvation appears in Tantrism in two interrelated forms, the ascetic and śaktic ones. Both of them agree with each other in rejection of spiritual ignorance. Spiritual ignorance is the main “negative goal”; without deliverance from it there is no freedom. The state of ignorance is existential one and endowed with powerful protective “forces”. The principle of salvation implies the deliverance not only from everything that is usually considered negative, but also of “positive” things. In the śaktic mode of the principle of salvation, it is assumed that an incorrect view of reality is eliminated by a correct view of it. Due to the fact that, according to the tantric adepts, the energies of the divine Śakti act in the world, the understanding of this fact leads the adept to stop perceiving himself as a dependent being even in the midst of an infinite variety of processes and events of the world. Life is then perceived as an unconditioned, spontaneous “divine play”, a stream of divine pleasure. Ascetic form can be reduced to an ontological interpretation of the principle of salvation, and śaktic form to a cognitive one. (shrink)

One of the most essential characteristics of living material—indeed, according to many, its most essential characteristic—is the fact that it is irritable. A living cell responds to sudden environmental changes, and typically a cell of a given sort responds in a definite and particular way no matter what the nature of the stimulation. Thus when a muscle cell is exposed to sudden heat, to sudden cold, to a sharp mechanical impact, to ultraviolet radiation, or to an electric current, it shortens. (...) Similarly, a nerve fiber responds in its own characteristic way, and this response is independent of the nature of the stimulation. In general, mechanical impacts, ultraviolet radiation, electric shocks, and certain types of chemical substances are stimulating agents for many diverse types of protoplasm and they serve to arouse it to activity. The response of protoplasm to stimulation may be prevented by anesthetics. These are substances which nullify the effect of a stimulus without killing or seriously injuring the protoplasm. The remarkable fact is that there are general anesthetics, substances which in much the same concentration can prevent protoplasmic activity in widely different protoplasmic systems. Many fat solvents, such as ether, are general anesthetics. Magnesium salts also behave as anesthetics for many different types of cells. (shrink)

The relationship between Legal Realism and Legal Positivism has been a recurrent source of debate. The question has been further complicated by the related difficulty of assessing the internal relationship between the two main original strands of Legal Realism: American and Scandinavian. This paper suggests considering American and Scandinavian Realism as instantiations of forward-looking and backward-looking rule skepticism respectively. This distinction brings into sharp relief not only the fundamentally different relationship between each of these two Realist schools and Legal Positivism (...) but also their equally different potentials as starting points for naturalizing jurisprudence. (shrink)

Friedrich Schlegel is known above all as a man of letters and political interests, while his philosophical opus has received as yet a very limited interest and attention. Perhaps this new critical edition will enable him to carve a small niche for himself in forthcoming histories of philosophy. He was certainly not the most significant thinker; but his imagination, many-sidedness, sharpness, and his unmistakable speculative gift qualify him to be in the second rank of Romantic philosophers immediately after Schelling and (...) Baader. The young Friedrich Schlegel was thoroughly under the spell of Fichte, but his later development—notwithstanding personal antipathy—carried him close to Schelling. The ethical pathos of Fichte's doctrine could not make Schlegel overlook the injustice done to nature, art, and religion. Though his celebrated conversion to Catholicism in the Dom of Cologne did not take place until 1838, Schlegel read Jacob Boehme and was a close friend of Schleiermacher, and thus was absorbed by religious problems years before. Already in his Cologne lectures he goes beyond the vague idealistic concept of the "divinity" in favor of a personal and transcendent God. These two volumes of the critical edition contain the following texts: Transzendentalphilosophie, lectures in Jena from 1800-1801. The text is the one published by J. Körner in 1935. The Development of Philosophy in Twelve Books and Propedeutic and Logic. The texts in Propedeutic and Logic are of a general introductory character. But in The Development of Philosophy a tremendous effort is made to give, if not an entirely systematic, at least a quasi-all-embracing, encyclopedic sketch of philosophy and its history. Here again we read nothing substantially new. The editor follows the text published by Windischmann in 1836 but does complete it with variants from other manuscripts. Métaphysique. These lectures were delivered in French to Madame de Staël. In addition to an already known text published by J. Körner the editor makes use of a manuscript in the hand of Schlegel which was found only after the last war. The preface of J.-J. Anstett is ascetically short and even the commentary consists only of sober and learned notes at the end of the second volume.—M. J. V. (shrink)

t. 1. Filosofii︠a︡ ; Izbrannye predislovii︠a︡ ; I︠A︡zykoznanie -- t. 2. Filologii︠a︡ ; Vospominanii︠a︡ i nabli︠u︡denii︠a︡ ; Pami︠a︡ti uchiteleĭ i kolleg ; Prilozhenie : A.N. Kolmogorov, semioticheskie poslanii︠a︡.