Echoing Richard Rorty’s earlier Consequences of Pragmatism, this collection begins with an essay on “Phenomenology in America: 1964-1984,” and concludes with a “Response to Rorty, or Is Phenomenology Edifying?” In between, the differences in the philosophical habits and practice of Anglo-American and Euro-American philosophers are examined and a reformulated, non-foundational phenomenology is sketched as a new direction responsive to the current situation in American philosophy. Don Ihde considers perception, technics, and contemporary Continental thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, Hans Georg Gadamer, (...) Michel Foucault, Ortega y Gassett, and Paul Ricoeur. (shrink)

In November, 1991, the U.S. Congress enacted the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines legislation which had a dramatic impact on corporate America. Can the Guidelines be used as a model or framework by other countries? Could other countries in the world benefit from adopting a similar piece of legislation? Are there any limitations to consider? In addressing these issues, the authors make the argument that the time has arrived for other countries to consider the development of legislation similar to the (...) Guidelines in order to improve organizational ethics. (shrink)

This paper deals with the genesis, development, and impact of Military Keynesianism in the U.S. Its impact on the civilian sector is examined in terms of: geographical distribution of military spending, sectoral militarization, labor market and occupational distortion, the militarization of R & D, R & D's impact on American competitiveness in the international market, the parasitic role of the military contract system and the unethical and exploitative role of military contractors. This paper exarnines the issues related to disarmament and (...) economic conversion with special reference to bills pending before the Congress. The author suggests are definition of "national security" in tune with the INF Treaty and the end of cold-war ideology. (shrink)

Through the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the United States expanded its size by over 800,000 square miles. But neither President Thomas Jefferson nor Congress knew exactly what they had bought until 1806, when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark returned from their famous expedition. One of the most significant contributions of the Expedition was a better perception of the geography of the Northwest. Lewis and Clark prepared approximately 140 maps and filled in the main outlines of the previously blank map (...) of the northwestern United States. Robert I. Field has done much the same for the vast territory of U.S. health care regulation.On the front cover of Fields new book, Health Care Regulation in America: Complexity, Confrontation, and Compromise, is a picture of a giant three-dimensional labyrinth. Rarely is cover art so perfectly appropriate. (shrink)

Given certain well-known empirical facts–including the Bush II administration’s motivations and its actions initiating the war – the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 (and its continuing war of occupation) is not just (i.e., is not morally justified), on any standard interpretation of Just War Theory criteria for jus ad bellum. Since there was no imminent threat of attack by Iraq against the U.S., the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a Preventative or Merely Precautionary War (which is notrecognized by either (...) Just War Theory or international law as a legitimate basis for initiating a war) rather than a Preemptive War (which may sometimes be justified, if there is a real threat of imminent attack) or a Reactive War (responding to an unjustified attack from an aggressor, which is always justified). Moreover, the neo-conservative program for perpetual U.S. world domination by the weakening of other nations and the invasions of weaker nations for purposes of U.S. economic and geopolitical advantage (behind the facade of “spreading democracy and freedom”) is not morally justified. However, the moral status of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan is much less clear. Many argue that is was morally justified according to both Just War Theory and international law, given certain well-established empirical facts; particularly, al-Qaeda’s involvement with the events of 9-11 and the Taliban government’s protection of al-Qaeda and its terrorist infrastructure within Afghanistan. On this analysis, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was justified as both a Reactive War (responding to an unjustified attack against primarily civilian targets) and a Preemptive War (to try to make sure that al-Qaeda did not have the opportunity to use its infrastructure in Afghanistan to arrange other attacks on civilian targets in the U.S. or other nations). But the cogency of this analysis depends on whether there were any realistic alternatives fordisrupting al-Qaeda and bringing its leaders to justice; and some argue that such alternatives did exist. Moreover, even if U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan was morally justified it is arguable that the amount and type of force used – e.g. intensive, wide-spread bombing campaigns that killed many civilians – were not justified. (shrink)

Policy officials often assert that the U.S. has the best health care system in the world, but a recent scorecard on U.S. health system performance finds that the U.S. achieves a score of only 65 out of a possible 100 points on key indicators of performance in five key domains: healthy lives, access, quality, equity, and efficiency, where 100 represents the best achieved performance in other countries or within the U.S. The U.S. should aim higher by adopting a set of (...) policies that will extend affordable health insurance to all; align financial incentives for health care providers to enhance value and achieve savings; organize the health care system around the patient to ensure that care is accessible and coordinated; meet and raise benchmarks for high-quality, efficient care; and ensure accountable national leadership and public-private collaboration. The incoming president and Congress should aspire to have the best health system in the world — not just assert it — and can do so by learning from examples of excellence within the U.S. and abroad. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 14.1 (2004) 97-114 [Access article in PDF] Stem Cell Research in the U.S. after the President's Speech of August 2001 Cynthia B. Cohen On 9 August 2001, in a nationally televised speech, President Bush addressed the contentious question of whether to provide federal funds for human embryonic stem cell research (White House 2001).1 This research involves taking the primordial cells found in embryos and (...) transforming them into certain specialized cells, such as those of the heart, nerves, and muscles, with the ultimate goal of transferring these cells into patients to repair damaged cells and tissues. In his remarks, the President authorized funding for research only on stem cells already harvested from remaining embryos at in vitro fertilization (IVF) centers as of 9 August 2001, the date of the speech. In a "Fact Sheet" about embryonic stem cell research, he added the ethical requirements that (1) the donors of embryos gave informed consent to the derivation of stem cells from their embryos, (2) the embryos were created solely for reproductive purposes, and (3) no financial inducements were given to the embryo donors. The President also prohibited federally funded research on embryonic stem cells derived from embryos after 9 August 2001, as well as the creation of embryos for research purposes and the cloning of human embryos for both reproductive and research purposes. He did not seek to ban the pursuit of embryonic stem cell research with private funds. "This allows us to explore the promise and potential of stem-cell research without crossing a fundamental moral line by providing taxpayer funding that would sanction or encourage further destruction of embryos," the President stated (White House 2001).The President's speech stirred intense controversy. Many applauded the new policy because it allowed some embryonic stem cell research to proceed, thereby raising hope that treatments might be developed for those suffering from such conditions as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and diabetes. Others supported it on grounds that it would discourage the future destruction of embryos in stem cell research. They maintained that although it was wrong to have derived stem cells from embryos, this wrong was no longer remediable and it therefore was justifiable to allow research using such embryos to proceed. Some, however, objected to the new policy because they held that it unduly limited the [End Page 97] number of embryonic stem cells available for federally funded research. Still others opposed it on grounds that it made the federal government complicit in what they took to be the wrongful destruction of human embryos that had taken place prior to 9 August 2001. The President established the President's Council on Bioethics by executive order in November 2001 and charged it, among other tasks, with monitoring stem cell research and recommending guidelines and regulations for biomedical innovations.Questions about the moral status of human embryos have so captured public attention since the President issued his remarks that other significant ethical and policy issues raised about stem cell research inside the Beltway have remained in the shadows. A number of individuals and organizations—legislators, scientists, patient groups, the President's Council on Bioethics, ethicists, religious task forces, and social commentators—have attempted to bring these other issues to legislative and public attention. They also have revisited the more publicly prominent question of what sorts of protections we owe to human embryos. In response, Congress has attempted to address several of these newly emerging issues at hearings and in legislation. I review these efforts, consider developing issues and arguments, and conclude by exploring possible future directions for federal and private sector stem cell policy. The Availability of Embryonic Stem Cell Lines to Federally Funded Researchers President Bush, in developing his stem cell research policy, accepted a distinction between the "derivation" and the "use" of embryos enunciated by the General Counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services toward the end of the Clinton administration. This distinction was adopted to avoid contravening the Dickey-Wicker Amendment (added... (shrink)

In 1951–1952 a selected committee appointed by the US Congress investigated the circumstances of the so-called Katyn Crime. The reasons why the highest US legislative body undertook the issue hale to be sought in the international situation of the day, which was determined by the Korean War.The “Katyn Committee” was called up on September 18, 1951 by the House of Representatives of the 82nd Congress on the strength of Resolution 390. Sitting on it were Daniel L. Flood, Thaddeus (...) M. Machrowicz, George A. Dondero, Foster Furcolo, Alvin K. O’Konski, Timothy P. Sheenan and Ray J. Madden, who was also appointed its chairman. The committee began interrogating witnesses on October 11, 1951 and closed the interrogations on November 14, 1952. Simultaneously, the committee inspected 183 material exhibits pertaining to the Katyn event. In all the committee took down the testimonies of 81 main and about 200 secondary witnesses as well as about a hundred written testimonies and accounts.The committee’s final report to the House of Representatives clearly stated the responsibility of the Soviet NKVD for the 1940 massacre of around 15,000 Polish officers from POW camps in Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostaszków.In response to the committee’s proceedings the east bloc staged a propaganda campaign aimed at discrediting its work and upholding the so-called Katyn Lie—a 1943—originated false version of the events whereby the executions of the Polish officers had been carried out by the Germans in the latter half of 1941.The Soviet government took an official stand on the committee on February 29, 1952. It rejected all possibility of cooperation and underscored the Germans’ responsibility for the massacre. On March 1, 1952 the Polish government issued a statement condemning the committee and reiterating the false version of the Katyn incident. This statement appeared in the March 1 edition of the national daily Trybuna Ludu under the heading, The Polish nation indignantly condemns the cynical provocations of American imperialists, who are feeding on the tragic deaths of thousands of Polish citizens in Katyn.The main wave of attacks on the Madden Committee rolled through the Eastern European press in March, 1952. It was most intense in the Soviet Union and Poland, but also penetrated to other countries like Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria. In the USSR most of the related coverage was published in the communist party daily Pravda. In Poland articles attacking the Madden Committee and propagating the false version of the Katyn events appeared in all dailies and periodicals, including the party, military, youth, branch and satirical press. Especially avid in this respect were papers brought out by the Czytelnik publishers, notably Życie Warszawy. Also published was a deceitful book The Truth About Katyn by Boleslaw Wójcicki.Simultaneously to the press campaign against the Madden Committee the eastern countries launched broad scale repressions involving the prosecution, courts and intelligence services. (shrink)

One of the most visible symbols of the debate over human rights and national security in the context of the U.S. "War on Terrorism" has been the detainment of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, following the U.S. war in Afghanistan. The controversy concerning the fate of the nearly 600 prisoners demonstrates the emergence of new modes of democratic deliberation over how to strike the balance between rights and security. These new modes (...) of deliberation involve nongovernmental organizations and individuals who function as norm entrepreneurs, by mobilizing public opinion through transnational networks of opinion-makers and policymakers. Transnational networks of norm entrepreneurs have emerged where traditional avenues for foreign policymaking in the U.S. have failed to create a space for meaningful consideration of human rights in the rights/security balance. These traditional avenues are envisioned in the Constitution, which gives the President authority regarding foreign affairs, bounded by checks provided to Congress and the courts. While the goal of the constitutional process is to bring these institutional players into a dialogue, Congress and the judiciary have failed to engage the President in a conversation regarding the balance between human rights and national security. In the absence of initiatives by the government, nongovernmental actors have used communication structures within transnational networks to promote what this Article calls a dialogic approach to enforcement of human rights law. (shrink)

This paper deals with the genesis, development, and impact of Military Keynesianism in the U.S. Its impact on the civilian sector is examined in terms of: geographical distribution of military spending, sectoral militarization, labor market and occupational distortion, the militarization of R & D, R & D's impact on American competitiveness in the international market, the parasitic role of the military contract system and the unethical and exploitative role of military contractors. This paper exarnines the issues related to disarmament and (...) economic conversion with special reference to bills pending before the Congress. The author suggests are definition of "national security" in tune with the INF Treaty and the end of cold-war ideology. (shrink)

Almost exactly ten years ago, the now extinct U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) released a major report -- The Electronic Supervisor: New Technology, New Tensions. This report describes a number of new technologies available to management in its ongoing search to ensure that labour performs its required job to management's rigid specifications. Social issues raised with respect to electronic monitoring included privacy, fairness, quality of working life, and stress-related illnesses. The study was also concerned with drug testing, (...) genetic screening, polygraph testing, as well as a variety of technologies for eavesdropping and monitoring. It seems to be appropriate to evaluate the analyses and recommendations made in the report and to extend the evaluation to current technologies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Russell's Naturalistic Turn 37 INTRODUCTION L RUSSELL'S NATURALISTIC TURN RUSSELI.?S NATURALISTIC TURN NED S. GARVIN Philosophy I Albion College Albion, MI 49224 I Quine, Ontological Relativity (New York: Columbia U. P., 1969), p. 83. 1 Russell advocated this hypothetical acceptance of science much earlier, e.g., in AMa, pp. 398-9. Here we have many of the hallmarks of naturalized epistemology: (I) fallibilism, (2) the "best theory" account of science, (3) (...) the view that "knowing" is a natural phenomenon not confined to humans, and (4) the embedding of epistemology in behavioural psychology. But in 1940 Russell was a foundationalist (though an increasingly moderate one) who insisted that normative, or as he called it, "critical" epistemology must be distinguished from natural epistemology, and that critical epistemology is philosophically more important: "Within its limitations, theory of knowledge of the above sort is legitimate and In the nrst form of theory of knowledge, we accept the scientific account of the world, not as certainly true, but as the best at present available. The world, as presented by science, contains a phenomenon caIled "knowing", and theory of knowledge, in its first form, has to consider what sort of phenomenon this is. Viewed from the outside, it is, to begin with, a characteristic of living organisms, which is (broadly speaking) increasingly displayed as the organism becomes more complex. (Pp. 12-13)2 Both knowledge and error, at this stage, are observable relations between the behaviour of the organism and the facts of the environment. (P. 14) Quine argued that traditional justification requires non-scientific propositions that are more secure than scientific propositions, and we see there are none: science is providing the best account of the world and our knowledge of it. Though we abandon the attempt to justify science, we still attempt to understand it for nearly the same reasons that always motivated epistemology: "in order to see how evidence relates to theory, and in what ways one's theory of nature transcends any available evidence".I Russell contemplated a naturalistic turn of his own in 1943, shortly after writing An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth and nearly twentyfive years before Quine's landmark address. In the introduction to his Inquiry Russell claims that there are "two different inquiries, both important, and each having a right to the name 'theory of knowledge '" (IM~, p. 12). The first is recognizably natural epistemology: n.s. 11 (summer 1991): 36-S1.SSN 0036-016p ru•••II: the Journal of the Bertrand Russell Archives McMaster University Library Press w. V. Quine's address to the Fourteenth International Congress of Philosophy in 1968, published a year later as "Epistemology Naturalized " in Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, is a landmark of recent epistemology, marking the turn from traditional critical epistemology to a descriptive epistemology firmly embedded within natural science. I n 1943 Bertrand Russell wrote a little-known, three-page document he titled "Project of Future Work". It outlines the descriptive project of examining non-demonstrative inference that eventually becomes the focal point of Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. More remarkably, this document anticipates many salient features of naturalized epistemology, e.g., Russell argues that (I) an answer to scepticism is futile, we cannot justify scientific method; (2) the Humean Predicament arises from a traditional insistence on an unrealistic, demonstrative canon of justification; (3) non-demonstrative, fallible inference is already firmly embedded in scientific practice as a canon of inference, and should augment the demonstrative canon; and (4) the primary epistemic· problem is descriptive: in what circumstances does scientific method allow us to infer the existence of something unobserved from what we observe. These claims, in the wake of An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, suggest that Russell was on the verge of his own naturalistic turn. I argue that, despite striking anticipations of naturalized epistemology, Russell develops his descriptive project within a more traditional, critical epistemic perspective. 38 NED S. GARVIN important. But there is another kind of theory of knowledge which goes deeper and has, I think, much greater importance" (IMT;., p. 14). Russell observes that behavioural psychologists omit that they are fallible observers, and this fallibility introduces doubt into their results. Further, naive... (shrink)

ABSTRACTAnne C. Pluta’s reply to my critique perpetuates the errors that undermined the article I criticized. Pluta dismisses out of hand my suggestion that her mistakes are the result of the particular lens through which she and much of the political science community view the American presidency. Yet this suggestion has the merit of explaining why she contends that piling up nineteenth-century instances of presidential public “speech” undermines Jeffrey Tulis’s contention that the nature of presidential speech changed decisively at the (...) beginning of the twentieth century, such that rhetorical, often-demagogic appeals over the heads of Congress displaced public speech that affirmed the values of republican, constitutional government. (shrink)

Nonprofits are a major part of the U.S. economy and they are not immune from corporate malfeasance controversies. Even Congress has expressed concern about the crisis in nonprofit governance. The nonprofit response to Congress has been a historic initiative recognizing critical challenges to nonprofit governance. In contrast to their for‐profit counterparts, nonprofits are committed to missions serving the public benefit and not to shareholder profits. Accordingly, their missions and financial resources are intrinsic to their very existence, which is (...) built upon the public trust. That trust is rooted in fiduciary responsibility and reflected in best practices. This article traces the history of the nonprofit public trust and fiduciary standards and examines principles of Sarbanes–Oxley and other best practices as they apply to nonprofits. The authors sampled 80 health‐care nonprofit corporation web sites from eight asset classes to determine compliance with Sarbanes–Oxley and identification of fiduciary duty, ethical values, and other best practices. Among the very largest health‐care nonprofits, many comply with Sarbanes–Oxley and identify fiduciary duty, ethical values, and other best practices. However, there are substantial deficiencies in such compliance and identification among all remaining seven asset classes ranging from 99.9 million to less than 100,000. The results appear to corroborate the urgent necessity for reform articulated by the Congress and the nonprofit sector. Nonprofit governance has entered a new era where best practices must be implemented to sustain the public trust. (shrink)

The current debate on U.S. housing policy focuses on the role of the government in supporting the mortgage market. Existing organizations (Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac) are in conservatorship status, and Congress is considering alternative structures and guarantees including the Johnson‐Crapo bill, to provide catastrophic insurance in support of the coverage from private companies. The resolution of this issue is complicated by the various activities involved in the issue—investment securities, public policy, macroeconomics, accounting, and insurance. This article reviews the impact of (...) these activities on U.S. housing, with a discussion of the feasibility of creating a catastrophic insurance program similar to that of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The federal government has successfully operated catastrophic insurance programs in support of private sector initiatives, and this experience—while certainly not perfect—may be a reasonable approach to the current Fannie/Freddie dilemma. (shrink)

Svirsky, Howard, and Berman address the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ’s oversight of tobacco products, the newest major area of regulation Congress assigned to the FDA. They discus...

The socio-economic “pro-democracy” revolutions which are currently sweeping the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the name of glasnost and perestroika have virtually stunned all but the best informed in the Western World. The demand for reform throughout the so-called “Soviet block,” and the concomitant impatience with the progress of these changes in the economic and basic social fabric of these societies, have come to exhibit an urgency which few observers, if any, had been able to forecast a few short (...) years ago. The declarations by some members of the U.S. Congress that these changes are indicative of the fact that the cold war has been won by the West, and that we are now witnessing the precipitous collapse of Marxist ideology, together with the widespread sentiment that there is “no going back” to the repressive Leninist-inspired regimes of Stalin, Khruschev, and Brezhniev are all synergistic to the creation of a sentiment of optimism that indeed we have turned the corner in East-West relations. To a world which has lived under the long night of thermonuclear extinction for over four decades, the feeling accompanying the prospect of a possible end to the nightmare of Armageddon further enhances the euphoric sentiment. (shrink)

This paper is based on a doctoral thesis which aimed at investigating on whether the use of strategic vagueness in Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq has contributed to the breakout of the 2002–2003s Gulf war instead of a diplomatic solution of the controversies. This work contains a linguistic and legal comparative analysis between UN and U.S. documents and their drafts in order to demonstrate how vagueness was deliberately added to the final versions of the documents before being passed, and (...) thus strategically used vagueness has played a crucial role in UN resolutions related to the outbreak of war in Iraq, and in relevant legislation produced by the United States for its Congressional authorisation for war. The comparative analysis between S/RES/1441(2002) and US legislation has evidenced that that there would have been diplomatic solutions to the Iraq crises which were not synonymous of light-handed intervention against Iraq, but deliberately vague UN wording allowed the US to build its own legislation with a personal interpretation implying that the UN did not impede military action. (shrink)

Avicenna, 980-1037; Islamic scholar; criticism and interpretation; Islamic philosophy; congresses.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:President’s Council on BioethicsEdmund D. Pellegrino (bio) and F. Daniel Davis (bio)Approximately two weeks before what was to have been its final meeting, the White House dissolved the President’s Council on Bioethics by terminating the appointments of its 18 members. The letters of dismissal, dated 10 June 2009, informed the members that their service on the Council would end with the close of business the next day.The Council’s term (...) was set to expire on 30 September 2009. After President Obama’s election in November and during the transition, we were advised to proceed on the assumption that the Council would be permitted to cease on that date. Reasons for the abrupt move to disband the Council are unknown. We have accepted the fact that we Council members served at the pleasure of the President and that he simply exercised his rightful prerogative. No explanation is therefore required.Some observers have speculated that the action was retaliatory. They related to the fact that several members of the Council disagreed with the President’s stem cell policy in a signed statement published in the Hastings Center’s Bioethics Forum. Others have speculated that the move was pre-emptive. At its final meeting, scheduled for 25–26 June, the Council was set to sign-off on two of its final publications. One was a comprehensive report on the ethics of organ transplantation, and the other a white paper entitled Health Care and the Common Good. The aim was immediately to release the latter as a contribution to the intensifying debate about health care reform. Health Care and the Common Good could well have aided rather than impeded the President’s drive to better control health care costs and achieve universal coverage. The Council report attempted to ground both goals in the ethical framework of, as the title indicates, the common good of all Americans.In his letter terminating the members’ appointments, Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel Don Gips said that the President “recognizes the values of having a commission of experts in bioethical issues to provide objective and non-ideological bioethics advice to his administration.” Gips went on to say that the President is “currently rethinking the purposes and goals of such a bioethics commission, and is carefully considering a revitalized mission and mandate.” And, [End Page 309] responding to media enquiries, White House press officer Reid Cherlin explained that the President’s Council was terminated because it was a “philosophically leaning advisory group” and, according to a New York Times account by Nicholas Wade, “because it favored discussion over developing a shared consensus.” As for the ultimate outcome of the President’s “rethinking,” Cherlin indicated that President Obama will appoint a new commission with the mandate of offering “practical policy options” in bioethics.In the light of our experiences with the Council, we leave it with hopes that certain questions of national importance will be addressed. In light of the nature of federal advisory commissions, what is or are the proper roles of a national bioethics commission? If the aim is to provide advice and counsel to the President or, perhaps to the U. S. Congress, is that advice best rendered as a group consensus or as an in-depth exploration of the inevitably conflicting ethical perspectives on a given issue? How should such a commission be constituted—with what sorts of individuals? And what is the nature of the expertise that they individually and collectively bring to the commission’s functions? If the commission is to promote public debate and discussion, how exactly should it go about that task? And how is the efficacy of a commission to be assessed? Such questions inevitably lead us deep into contested territory, as the experience of this Council has shown: into the intersections of politics, religion, and science and into the relations between practice and theory—between policy and what some seem to deride as “philosophy.” Indeed, policy without an underlying philosophy is an edifice without a foundation; philosophy without policy is a foundation without an edifice.At the last meeting of the Council in March 2009, we launched a discussion of these questions with the... (shrink)