What elements lie at the core of patriarchal consciousness and give it its particular expressions? Beneath the hatred of women, at its source, is a profound, dissociating fear: the fear of non-being, the Absence beyond Death. In an effort to escape death and non-being, the patriarchs have constructed a conception of existence which is split in two, with eternal life, God, meaning and spirit on one side and bodily death on the other. The masculist association of women with bodies, nature (...) and the birthing-dying cycle places us clearly on the side of death, in the realm of being which is and necessarily must be despised and controlled. Alienation from the rhythms of life, giving rise to a crisis of meaning; the denial of death, which leads paradoxically to an adoration of death; and a hysterical ambivalence to sex and sensuality all coalesce and find concrete expression in the personal and institutionalized hatred of Woman. (shrink)

This paper discusses physician-assisted suicide and voluntary active euthanasia, supplies a short history and argues in favour of permitting both once rigid criteria have been set and the cases retro-reviewed. I suggest that among these criteria should be that VAE should only be permitted with one more necessary criterion: that VAE should only be allowed when physician assisted suicide is not a possible option. If the patient is able to ingest and absorb the medication there is no reason why VAE (...) should be permitted. A brief history of VAE and PAS is given and some of the arguments which have been given are analyzed. The Principle of the Double Effect is briefly discussed and why, in my opinion, it is not a valid principle is briefly discussed. (shrink)

Traditional theism says that the goodness of everything comes from God. Moreover, the goodness of something intrinsically valuable can only come from what has it. Many conclude from these two claims that no creatures have intrinsic value if traditional theism is true. I argue that the exemplarist theory of the divine ideas gives the theist a way out. According to exemplarism, God creates everything according to ideas that are about himself, and so everything resembles God. Since God is wholly good (...) in every way, and since ethical supervenience is true, it follows that creatures have intrinsic value. (shrink)

This volume presents a selection of papers reflecting key theoretical issues in argumentation theory. Its six sections are devoted to specific themes, including the analysis and evaluation of argumentation, argument schemes and the contextual embedding of argumentation. The section on general perspectives on argumentation discusses the trends of empiricalization, contextualization and formalization, offers descriptions of the analytical and evaluative tools of informal logic, and highlights selected principles that argumentation theorists do and do not agree upon. In turn, the section on (...) linguistic approaches to argumentation focuses on the problem of distinguishing between explanation and argument, while also elaborating on the role of verbal indicators of argument schemes. All essays included in this volume point out notable recent developments in the study of argumentation. (shrink)