La diffusion de méthodes de conception empruntant à l’univers du design et à l’image du design thinking restitue une forme renouvelée de mobilisation des cadres. La mobilisation recherchée se traduit par l’appréhension de l’innovation sous la forme d’une injonction managériale et d’une définition de dispositifs de gestion de la créativité. Il s’agit tout autant d’activer des dynamiques d’innovation que d’en assurer le cadrage dans un espace-temps spécifique. Dans cette perspective, l’article analyse les dynamiques temporelles produites par l’introduction d’un accélérateur de (...) projet s’illustrant par une intensification et une fragmentation du temps de travail des cadres engagés. Il s’agit de montrer comment ce type de dispositif de gestion de la créativité, loin d’être une réponse à la « critique artiste », prolonge le projet de rationalisation des activités de conception initié par la gestion de projet. Par-delà la rationalisation du travail de conception, l’article s’attache à appréhender les modes de réinvestissement du dispositif étudié sous l’angle des bénéfices symboliques retirés par les participants. (shrink)

A background assumption in much contemporary political philosophy is that justice is the first virtue of social institutions, taking priority over other values such as beneficence. This assumption is typically treated as a methodological starting point, rather than as following from any particular moral or political theory. In this paper, I challenge this assumption. To frame my discussion, I argue, first, that justice doesn’t in principle override beneficence, and second, that justice doesn’t typically outweigh beneficence, since, in institutional contexts, the (...) stakes of beneficence are often extremely high. While there are various ways one might resist this argument, none challenge the core methodological point that political philosophy should abandon its preoccupation with justice and begin to pay considerably more attention to social beneficence—that is, to beneficence understood as a virtue of social institutions. Along the way, I also highlight areas where focusing on social beneficence would lead political philosophers in new and fruitful directions, and where normative ethicists focused on personal beneficence might scale up their thinking to the institutional case. GPI Working Paper No. 11-2022. (shrink)

Beneficence is a foundational ethical principle in medicine. To provide benefit to a patient is to promote and protect the patient’s wellbeing, to promote the patient’s interests. But there are different conceptions of wellbeing, emphasizing different values. These conceptions of wellbeing are contrary to one another and give rise to dissimilar ideas of what it means to benefit a patient. This makes the concept of beneficence ambiguous: is a benefit related to the patient’s goals and wishes, or is it a (...) matter of objective criteria that constitute wellbeing? This paper suggests a unified conception of wellbeing for use in medicine to determine what counts as a benefit. Two components of wellbeing are identified: (1) objective functioning/health and (2) the patient’s view of her own good. The paper explores how to apply, balance, and weigh these components in clinical situations to determine what counts as a benefit to a patient. (shrink)

Imagine a world where everyone is healthy, intelligent, long living and happy. Intuitively this seems wonderful albeit unrealistic. However, recent scienti c breakthroughs in genetic engineering, namely CRISPR/Cas bring the question into public discourse, how the genetic enhancement of humans should be evaluated morally. In 2001, when preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and in vitro fertilisation (IVF), enabled parents to select between multiple embryos, Julian Savulescu introduced the principle of procreative bene cence (PPB), stating that parents have the obligations to choose (...) the child that is expected to have the best life. In this paper I argue that accepting the PPB and the consequentialist principle (CP) that two acts with the same consequences are morally on par, commits one to accepting the parental obligation of genetically enhancing one's children. (shrink)

La question de la religion - de son essence, de sa fonction, de son origine - a été centrale dans la sociologie et l'anthropologie classiques. Pour la tirer des impasses et de la stagnation où elle est reléguée de nos jours, Camille Tarot propose ici un bilan critique des œuvres des meilleurs comparatistes, à travers leurs théories si contradictoires de la religion. Huit auteurs principaux sont soumis à examen : Emile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss, Mircéa Eliade, Georges Dumézil, Claude Lévi-Strauss, René (...) Girard, Pierre Bourdieu et Marcel Gauchet. L'important en la matière est d'abord d'esquiver les faux irénismes comme les querelles stériles ou haineuses, pour confronter les doctrines en profondeur et systématiquement. Ensuite, de déceler l'impensé et les refoulements que produit chaque cadre théorique, pour proposer le modèle ou l'idéal-type de la religion qui paraît le mieux fondé. Au fil de cet examen, il apparaît que l'essence du fait religieux est à rechercher à l'intersection du symbolique et du sacré, à comprendre à partir des fondations d'Emile Durkheim et de Marcel Mauss, complétées par les apports de René Girard. La possible fécondité du modèle qui se dégage ainsi s'atteste par sa capacité à relire les sources et à renouveler en profondeur les vieux problèmes des fonctions de la religion, qui n'avaient guère avancé depuis Emile Durkheim. (shrink)

This paper argues that societal duties of health promotion are underwritten (at least in large part) by a principle of beneficence. Further, this principle generates duties of justice that correlate with rights, not merely “imperfect” duties of charity or generosity. To support this argument, I draw on a useful distinction from bioethics and on a somewhat neglected approach to social obligation from political philosophy. The distinction is that between general and specific beneficence; and the approach from political philosophy has at (...) times been called equality of concern. After clarifying the distinction and setting out the basis of the equality of concern view, I argue that the result is a justice-based principle of “specific” beneficence that should be reflected in a society’s health policy. I then draw on this account to criticize, refine, and extend some prominent health care policy proposals from the bioethics literature. (shrink)

Common sense tells us that in certain circumstances, helping someone is morally obligatory. That intuition appears incompatible with Kant's account of beneficence as a wide imperfect duty, and its implication that agents may exercise latitude over which beneficent actions to perform. In this paper, I offer a resolution to the problem from which it follows that some opportunities to help admit latitude and others do not. I argue that beneficence has two components: the familiar wide duty to help others achieve (...) their ends and a narrow duty to avoid indifference to others as end-setters. Although we are not always required to help, we are always required not to be indifferent. When helping someone is the only way not to be indifferent to a person, helping him/her is obligatory. My account avoids certain difficulties with other proposed solutions and can also address an important concern about proximity. (shrink)

The Principle of Procreative Beneficence (PB) holds that when a couple plans to have a child, they have significant moral reason to select, of the possible children they could have, the child who is most likely to experience the greatest wellbeing – that is, the most advantaged child, the child with the best chance at the best life.1 PB captures the common sense intuitions of many about reproductive decisions. PB does not posit an absolute moral obligation – it does not (...) dictate what people must do. Instead it holds that there is a significant moral reason to select the best child, but one that must be weighed against other reasons.Recent research suggests that it may become possible to derive gametes (eggs and sperm) from human stem cells in vitro, a process which we will term in vitro gametogenesis (IVG). The ability to create large numbers of eggs or sperm through IVG greatly increases our capacity to select the best child possible. (shrink)

It is plausible to think that it is wrong to cure many people’s headaches rather than save someone else’s life. On the other hand, it is plausible to think that it is not wrong to expose someone to a tiny risk of death when curing this person’s headache. I will argue that these claims are inconsistent. For if we keep taking this tiny risk then it is likely that one person dies, while many others’ headaches are cured. In light of (...) this inconsistency, there is a conflict in our intuitions about beneficence and chance. This conflict is perplexing. And I have not been able to find a satisfactory way of resolving it. Perhaps you can do better? (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Obligatory Ends Anti‐paternalism and the Duty of Beneficence Beneficence: The Finer Points The Question of Latitude Latitude and (Im)partiality Gratitude Sympathy Conclusion Bibliography.

L’étude de l’empire a connu récemment un regain d’intérêt, même si (et peut-être parce que) sa définition pose problème. Elle permet en effet d’étudier plusieurs aspects du pouvoir symbolique : les formes d’administration, les modes d’appropriation d’un territoire, les intensités de la souveraineté, les marquages spatiaux de la domination, etc. L’empire de Charles Quint représente de ce point de vue un modèle heuristique, dans la mesure où l’empereur s’est rapidement trouvé confronté au gouvernement de territoires éloignés, de statuts différents, mais (...) rassemblés dans l’aspiration universelle de l’empire chrétien. (shrink)

What are we morally required to do for strangers? To answer this question – a question about the scope of requirements to aid strangers – we must first answer a question about justification: why are we required to aid them (when we are)? The main paper focuses largely on answering the question about justification, but does so in order to arrive at an answer to the question about scope. Three main issues are discussed. First, to what extent should requirements of (...) beneficence – requirements to benefit other people – be seen as generated by people’s rights to receiving aid? Secondly, what is the relationship between requirements of beneficence that apply to us collectively and requirements of beneficence that apply to each of us individually? According to Liam Murphy, our obligations to help distant strangers are fundamentally collective obligations, and any individual obligations we bear are consequently obligations to discharge our “fair share” of these collective obligations. I shall argue that, on the contrary, there are large-scale collective obligations of beneficence that derive from more fundamental individual obligations. My third issue concerns the moral significance of citizenship. What morally relevant difference is there between strangers who are compatriots and those who are not? (shrink)

Consider a duty of beneficence towards a particular individual, S, and call a reason that is grounded in that duty a “beneficence reason towards S.” Call a person who will be brought into existence by an act of procreation the “resultant person.” Is there ever a beneficence reason towards the resultant person for an agent to procreate? In this paper, I argue for such a reason by appealing to two main premises. First, we owe a pro tanto duty of beneficence (...) to future persons; and second, some of us can benefit some of those persons by procreating. In support of the first premise I reject the presentist account of time in favor of the view that future persons are just as real as presently existing persons. I then argue that future persons are like us in all the morally relevant ways, and since we owe duties of beneficence to each other, we also owe duties of beneficence to future persons. In support of the second premise I offer an account of benefiting according to which an individual can be benefited by an action even if it makes her no better off than she would have been, had the action not been performed. This account of benefiting solves what I call the “non-identity benefit problem.” Finally, I argue that having a life worth living is a benefit, and some of us can cause some persons that benefit by causing them to exist. (shrink)

We have a reason to use information which is available about such genes in our reproductive decision-making; (3) couples should selec.

Beneficence is usually regarded as adequate when it results in an actual benefit for a beneficiary and satisfies her self-chosen end. However, beneficence that satisfies these conditions can harm beneficiaries' free agency, particularly when they are robustly dependent on benefactors. First, the means that benefactors choose can have undesirable side-effects on resources that beneficiaries need for future free action. Second, benefactors may undermine beneficiaries' ability to freely deliberate and choose. It is therefore insufficient to satisfy someone's self-chosen ends. Instead, good (...) beneficence depends on whether the benefactor avoids undue influence over a beneficiary's deliberation and whether the choice of means is compatible with the beneficiary's conception of her good. Consequently, benefactors must have substantial respect for a beneficiary's free agency and the practical competence to choose means that take into account the beneficiary's conception of her good and the wider set of circumstances that influence her life. (shrink)

Recently, Julian Savulescu and Guy Kahane have defended the Principle of Procreative Beneficence (PB), according to which prospective parents ought to select children with the view that their future child has ‘the best chance of the best life’. I argue that the arguments Savulescu and Kahane adduce in favour of PB equally well support what I call the Principle of General Procreative Beneficence (GPB). GPB states that couples ought to select children in view of maximizing the overall expected value in (...) the world, not just the welfare of their future child. I further argue that Savulescu and Kahane's claim that PB has significantly more weight than competing moral principles, such as GPB, lacks justification. A possible argument for PB having significant weight builds on a principle of parental partiality towards one's own children. But this principle does not support PB; it supports a Principle of Sibling-Oriented Procreative Beneficence (SPB), according to which parents selecting a child should maximize the benefit of all their children. Indeed, PB itself will in some cases be self-effacing in favour of SPB. (shrink)

The argument of Julian Savulescu’s 2001 paper, “Procreative Beneficence: Why We Should Select the Best Children” is flawed in a number of respects. Savulescu confuses reasons with obligations and equivocates between the claim that parents have some reason to want the best for their children and the more radical claim that they are morally obligated to attempt to produce the best child possible. Savulescu offers a prima facie implausible account of parental obligation, as even the best parents typically fail to (...) do everything they think would be best for their children let alone everything that is in fact best for their children. The profound philosophical difficulties which beset the attempt to formulate a plausible account of the best human life constitute a further independent reason to resile from Savulescu’s conclusion. Savulescu’s argument also requires parents to become complicit with racist and homophobic oppression, which is yet another reason to reject it. Removing the equivocation from Savulescu’s argument allows us to see that the assertion of an obligation to choose the “best child” has much more in common with the “old” eugenics than Savulescu acknowledges. (shrink)

Is implementing the beneficent nudge program morally permissible in worlds like ours? I argue that there is reason for serious doubt. I acknowledge that beneficent nudging is highly various, that nudges are in some circumstances morally permissible and even called for, and that nudges may exhibit respect for genuine autonomy. Nonetheless, given the risk of epistemic injustice that nudges typically pose, neither the moral permissibility of beneficent nudging in the abstract, nor its case-by-case vindication, appears sufficient to justify implementing a (...) nudge program in worlds like ours. Drawing on Miranda Fricker’s account of epistemic injustice, I argue that the cogent defense of any nudge program, relative to worlds like ours, stands in need of serious attention to its potential for fostering or sustaining epistemic injustice. A more specific point hinges on recognizing a form of epistemic injustice not enough attended to in the literature to date, which I call reflective incapacitational injustice. This includes relative disadvantages in the attaining of the capacity to engage in critical reason, such as the capacity to go in for potentially critical reasoned deliberation and discursive exchange concerning ends. Since Cass Sunstein’s First Law of behaviorally informed regulation would be taken, in worlds like ours, to justify indeterminately many nudges leading to such epistemic injustice we have general grounds for doubting the moral permissibility of this nudge program. We should hence oppose the implementation of any such program until it is shown not to violate the demands of epistemic justice. (shrink)

When it comes to the duty of beneficence, a formidable class of moderate positions holds that morally significant considerations emerge when one's actions are seen as part of a larger series. Agglomeration, according to these moderates, limits the demands of beneficence, thereby avoiding the extremely demanding view forcefully defended by Peter Singer. This idea has much appeal. What morality can demand of people is, it seems, appropriately modulated by how much they have already done or will do. Here we examine (...) a number of recent proposals that appeal to agglomeration. None of them, we argue, succeeds. (shrink)

Julian Savulescu has given clear expression to a principle—that of “procreative beneficence”—which underlies the thought of many contemporary writers on bioethics. The principle of procreative beneficence holds that parents or single reproducers are at least prima facie obliged to select the child, out of a range of possible children they might have, who will be likely to lead the best life. My aim in this paper is to argue that prospective parents, just by dint of their being prospective parents, are (...) in fact not obliged to act on PPB. That is, there is something about their filling the role of prospective parents that exempts them from selecting the child with the best life. I urge that it is more realistic to view prospective parents as bound by a principle of acceptable outlook, which holds that they ought not to select children whose lives will contain an unacceptable amount of suffering. (shrink)

There can be situations in which, if I contribute to a pool of resources for helping a large number of people, the difference that my contribution makes to any of the people helped from the pool will be imperceptible at best, and maybe even non-existent. And this can be the case where it is also true that giving the same amount directly to one of the intended beneficiaries of the pool would have made a very large difference to her. Can (...) non-contribution to the pool be morally justified on this ground? I argue that it cannot. For, first, this line of thought leaves unaffected any reasons for holding that failing to perform the direct action of benefiting someone greatly would be wrong. But the pooling system of helping people is often better than a system separating the help which is given — better because of the perceptible difference it makes to its beneficiaries. If so, failing to contribute to the pool will be at least as wrong as failing to have helped directly would have been. The paper clarifies and defends an argument of this form, showing how it can be formulated in a way that avoids apparent counterexamples, and identifying the assumptions on which it rests. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn 2001, Julian Savulescu wrote an article entitled ‘Procreative Beneficence: Why We Should Select the Best Children’, in which he argued for the genetic selection of intelligence in children. That article contributes to a debate on whether genetic research on intelligence should be undertaken at all and, if so, should intelligence selection be available to potential parents. As such, the question of intelligence selection relates to wider issues concerning the genetic determination of behavioural traits, i.e. alcoholism. This article is designed (...) as an engagement in the intelligence selection debate using an analysis of Savulescu's arguments to raise a series of problematic issues in relation to the ethics of parental selection of intelligence. These problematic issues relate to wider assumptions that are made in order to put forward intelligence selection as a viable ethical option. Such assumptions are more generic in character, but still relate to Savulescu's article, concerning issues of genetic determinism, private allocation and inequality, and, finally, individual versus aggregate justice. The conclusion focuses on what the implications are for the question of agency, especially if intelligence selection is allowed. (shrink)

In chapter 3 of Wild Animal Ethics Johannsen argues for a collective obligation based on beneficence to intervene in nature in order to reduce the suffering of wild animals. In the same chapter he claims that the non-identity problem is merely a “theoretical puzzle” which doesn’t affect our reasons for intervention. In this paper I argue that the non-identity problem affects both the strength and the nature of our reasons to intervene. By intervening in nature on a large scale we (...) change which animals come into existence. In doing so, we enable harmful animals to inflict harms on other animals, and we put other animals in harm’s way. The harms that these animals will inflict and endure are foreseeable. Furthermore, since non-human animals aren’t moral agents, harmful animals cannot be morally responsible for their harmful actions. I argue therefore that by causing animals to exist, knowing that they will inflict and suffer harms, we become morally responsible for those harms. By engaging in identity-affecting actions then we take on secondary moral duties towards the animals we have thereby caused to exist, and these secondary moral duties may be extremely demanding, even more so than the initial costs of intervention. Finally, these duties are duties of justice rather than duties of beneficence, and as such are more stringent than purely beneficence-based moral reasons. Furthermore, this conclusion flows naturally from several plausible principles which Johannsen explicitly endorses. (shrink)

Euthanasia has once again become headline news in the UK, with the announcement by Dr Michael Irwin, a former medical director of the United Nations, that he has helped at least 50 people to die, including two between February and July 1997. He has been quoted as saying that his ‘conscience is clear’ and that the time has come to confront the issue of euthanasia. For the purposes of this article, the term ‘beneficent voluntary active euthanasia’ (BVAE) will be used: (...) beneficent from the prima facie principle of beneficence, to do good, and voluntary to indicate that this must be carried out at the request of a competent client. This implies adherence to another prima facie principle, that of respect for autonomy. Active implies that something is done or given with the intention of hastening death. The word euthanasia itself simply means ‘good death’. This article examines the moral positions of two nurses and one junior doctor towards the subject of BVAE and an attempt is made to represent the main conflicting moral positions. The central arguments against BVAE and counterarguments are presented. The conclusion reached is that consenting adults should not be prevented from availing themselves of BVAE if another consenting adult (a medical doctor) is available and capable of carrying out their wishes. This being the case, it is suggested that BVAE should be available as an option in hospices and in the community. The aims of this article are: to generate debate among professionals; to present a three-way discussion that might be useful as a focus for educational purposes, particularly at undergraduate level; to challenge professionals to confront the issue of euthanasia; and to plead the case of those who request assistance in exercising autonomy by gaining control over their own deaths. (shrink)

I argue that rather than aiming at the well-being of those whom we love, we should aim to share in their ends. The former stance runs the risk of being objectionably paternalistic and, as I explain, only the latter makes reciprocal relationships possible. I end by diagnosing our attraction to the idea that we should promote our loved-ones’ well-being.

Beneficence is one of the four principles that form the basis of the Australian National Statement. The aim of this paper is to explore the philosophical development of this principle and to clarify the role that beneficence plays in contemporary discussions about human research ethics. By examining the way that guidance documents, particularly the National Statement, treats beneficence we offer guidance to researchers and human research ethics committee members on the practical application of what can be a conceptually difficult principle.

This chapter examines the explicit and implicit roles that the concept of beneficence plays in the guidelines that govern biomedical research involving humans. We suggest that the role beneficence is actually playing in the guidelines is more comprehensive than is commonly assumed. The broader conceptualisation of beneficence proposed here clarifies the relationship of beneficence to respect for autonomy. It does this by showing how respect for autonomy is at the service of beneficence rather than in tension with it.

This article explores the motives underlying corporate responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis begins with Thomas Dunfee’s Statement of Minimum Moral Obligation, which specifies, more precisely than any other contribution to the business ethics canon, the level of corporate beneficence required during a pandemic. The analysis then turns to Milton Friedman’s neoliberal understanding of human nature, critically contrasting it with the notion of stoic virtue that informs the works of Adam Smith. Friedman contends that beneficence should play no role (...) in corporate settings. Smith, by contrast, emphasizes the need for prudence, beneficence and self-command in all human endeavours. The article then uses these competing frameworks to reflect on a published survey of 145 corporate responses to COVID-19. In many of these responses, the benefit to a non-financial stakeholder is clear, while the financial consequence to the firm remains nebulous. This supports the contention that during a pandemic, beneficence provides a more complete explanation of many corporate actions than the profit motive alone. The article contests Friedman’s Chicago School profit imperative and goes beyond Dunfee’s SMMO by endorsing the more full-throated embrace of beneficence and stoic virtue found in the works of Smith. (shrink)

Simple acts of kindness that are performed sincerely and with evident good will can also, paradoxically, be perceived as deeply insulting by the people we succeed in benefiting. When we are moved to help someone out of genuine concern for her, when we have no intention to humiliate or embarrass her and when we succeed at benefiting her, how can our generosity be disparaging or demeaning to her? Yet, when the tables are turned, we sometimes find ourselves brusquely refusing assistance (...) from others or accepting it only grudgingly while trying to show that we do not need their charity. People with disabilities often find ourselves in situations of this sort, where we bristle at others who rush to open doors for us, for instance, while our kindhearted benefactors are surprised and hurt by the cold reception they receive for their efforts. My aim is to explain some of the ways in which well-intentioned and effective beneficence can be offensive, with special emphasis on cases in which someone provides assistance to a disabled person. (shrink)

Procreative Beneficence (PB) states that couples should have “the best child” they can, that means, they have a moral obligation to select the child, that “can be expected to enjoy the most well-be...

Meaningful work is a key element of positive functioning of employees, but what makes work meaningful? Based on research on self-determination theory, basic psychological needs, and prosocial impact, we suggest that there are four psychological satisfactions that substantially influence work meaningfulness across cultures: autonomy (sense of volition), competence (sense of efficacy), relatedness (sense of caring relationships), and beneficence (sense of making a positive contribution). We test the relationships between these satisfactions and perceived meaningful work in Finland (n = 594, employees (...) of several organizations), India (n = 342, collected through Mturk), and the USA (n = 373, collected through Mturk). Regression analyses show that – except for competence in USA – all four satisfactions are significantly and independently associated with meaningful work. Moreover, structural equation modeling shows that they fully mediated the relationship between occupational position and work meaningfulness in India and in the USA. In sum, the results support the importance of these four satisfactions in explaining the psychological underpinnings of meaningful work. (shrink)

According to Peter Singer, virtually all of us would be forced by adequate reflection on our own convictions to embrace a radical conclusion about giving. The following principle, he says, is “surely undeniable” -- at least once we reflect on secure convictions concerning rescue, as in his famous case of the drowning toddler.

Some philosophers claim that there is no morally relevant distinction to be made between duties of rescue and beneficence. In this paper I will highlight an undesirable implication of this position: over-demandingness. After rejecting a prominent attempt to address this problem, I will then advance a virtue-ethical principle that adequately distinguishes the relevant duties and avoids over-demandingness. This principle links wrong actions to character by focusing on the vice of contempt for humanity. Here I will engage with Michael Slote’s similar (...) efforts, critiquing and improving upon them. This essay addresses a gap in the literature on positive duties by appealing to relevant virtue-ethical considerations from within a Neo-Aristotelian framework. (shrink)

The patient’s autonomy and well-being are sometimes seen as central to the ethical justification of voluntary euthanasia (VE) and physician-assisted suicide (PAS). While respecting the patient’s wish to die plausibly promotes the patient’s autonomy, it is less obvious how alleviating the patient’s suffering through death benefits the patient. Death eliminates the subject, so how can we intelligibly maintain that the patient’s well-being is promoted when she/he no longer exists? This article interrogates two typical answers given by philosophers: (a) that death (...) confers a well-being benefit in the sense that it actualises a comparatively better life course for the patient (ie, a shorter life with less net suffering), and (b) that death is beneficial because non-existence which entails no suffering is superior to an existence filled with suffering. A close examination of the two senses in which the patient might incur a well-being benefit reveals problems that preclude physicians delivering VE/PAS in the name of beneficence. (shrink)

Insufficient vaccination coverage is an important public health problem in many countries, since it leads to the loss of herd protection and the resurgence of previously exterminated diseases. However, policies of mandatory childhood vaccination capable of raising vaccination rates continue to be controversial. In this article I review the arguments for mandatory childhood vaccination, setting out the strongest teleological argument in favour, and then critically examining the two strongest potential objections: paternalism and the parental prerogative. I argue that the challenge (...) of paternalism fails because it confuses the identities of those subject to restricted liberty and those who autonomously dissent, and because non-vaccination imposes risks on others. I argue that the challenge of a parental prerogative fails because it cannot be intuitively or theoretically supported in a form that would make it permissible to impose risks on others. I conclude that in lieu of further and more plausible objections at least some policies of mandatory childhood vaccination are morally permissible. (shrink)

La comparaison entre Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse de Durkheim et le Cours de linguistique générale (CLG) fait apparaître la fameuse critique adressée par Lévi-Strauss à la tradition sociologique française à front renversé : que fait en effet Durkheim dans ce texte sinon « chercher une origine symbolique de la société »? Inversement, Saussure ne dit-il pas de son côté que la langue n’existe que comme « fait social » ou « dans la collectivité »? Cet article montre (...) que, bien qu’ils partagent le même nouage intime entre ces deux propositions, « le signe est social » et « le social est réel », Durkheim et Saussure ont des notions diamétralement opposées du symbolique et du social, et même de ce qu’être veut dire. Matériel, extérieur, identique pour tous selon Durkheim, le signe peut représenter la transcendance et l’unité de la réalité collective. Mais la révolution saussurienne commence avec la découverte que le signe linguistique lui-même (et pas seulement le sens) est « incorporel », spirituel, toujours en variation, et s’achève par l’affirmation de son être « de masse », en passant par la construction d’un concept radicalement nouveau : celui d’« institution pure ». (shrink)

In an era of rapidly rising health care costs, physicians and policymakers are searching for new and effective ways to contain health care spending without sacrificing the quality of services provided. These proposals are increasingly articulated in terms of an ethical duty of stewardship. The duty of stewardship in medicine, however, is not at present well understood, and it is frequently conflated with other duties. This article presents a critical analysis of the notion of stewardship, which shows that it has (...) an important and distinctive place in medical ethics. It claims that stewardship in medicine concerns the responsible use of a society’s medical resources and it discusses the extent to which medical professionals are the proper stewards of these resources. The article argues that the duty of stewardship is best understood as a duty that applies in a space between the obligations of health care providers to provide beneficent care to their patients on the one hand and the obligations of citizens to bring about and support a just health care system on the other. Seen with clear eyes, stewardship in medicine is neither a consequence of beneficent medical care nor a substitute for justice. (shrink)

L'Homme, cet être vivant doué de raison, fabricant d'objets élaborés, doté d'un langage articulé, chez lequel a émergé la pensée conceptuelle et symbolique, se caractérise par une aptitude à l'émerveillement, et une capacité d'espérance accompagnée d'un refus de l'absurde. Avec l'invention de l'outil manufacturé et les premiers témoignages d'une pensée symbolique, comment la fabuleuse aventure culturelle et spirituelle de l'Homme a-t-elle débuté? Pourquoi à travers les temps, même les plus anciens, et dans toutes les cultures, l'émergence du sens de la (...) transcendance n'a-t-il cessé de se manifester et de s'inscrire au coeur de notre humanité? Comment est-il devenu une caractéristique de l'Homme, une de ses aspirations profondes? Comment définir le sens du sacré? C'est de cette dimension intrinsèquement humaine, et des traces qu'elle a laissées, qu'il est ici question. Après L'Univers, la Vie et l'Homme : émergence du sens de la Conscience et Le Beau, l'Art et l'Homme : émergence du sens de l'Esthétique, voici le troisième et dernier opus dirigé par Henry de Lumley, issu d'un cycle de conférences au Collège des Bernardins. L'ambition de ces rencontres? Faire dialoguer physiciens, astrophysiciens, géologues, biologistes, paléoanthropologues, préhistoriens, historiens de l'art, philosophes et théologiens autour de questions qui ont trait à l'essence de l'humanité. (shrink)

(2002). Therapeutic Beneficence and Patient Recruitment in Randomized Controlled Clinical Trials. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 35-36.