Collaborative research practices in the field of plant genetic resources must follow the principles of fairness and equity as defined in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and in the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). In this context the concepts of fairness and equity generally refer to the substantive and procedural dimensions associated with sharing the benefits of this research. But neither term is clearly defined by these international treaties, and the meanings attributed to (...) the concepts vary among different societies. This paper looks at the question of how to account for the diversity among value systems when conducting research that implicates diverse stakeholders and respects the requirements of fairness and equity. We incorporated an auto-ethnography method developed as part of a multi-stakeholder network involved in research projects on plant genetic resources in West Africa. A theatrical device was used as a framework for testing the principles of fairness and equity, helping us to collectively identify feelings of injustice, and explore the conditions for making collaborative research practices more ethical in ways that respect the perspectives of different stakeholders. In an environment of extensive political and socio-cognitive inequality, this approach makes it possible to explain the criteria relating to interactional justice and expectations in terms of socio-political and socio-emotional benefits. It also invites us to consider the principles of fairness and equity in a framework of ethical competence that goes beyond international directives. (shrink)

L’infléchissement de l’économie vers la scientificité masque un paradoxe : moins l’économie s’annonce comme politique, plus elle l’est. L’approche critique de Marx rappelle en effet combien ce régime de discours est idéologique. Réciproquement, c’est le dépassement politique, indexé au matérialisme historique, qui donne à la critique marxienne sa fécondité heuristique. Celle-ci s’appuie sur un projet : l’appropriation politique des forces productives. Définissant ces trois sens dans la lecture de Marx mais aussi dans la distance qui nous en sépare, l’étude s’interroge (...) sur une question posée au présent : comment gagner en politicité? (shrink)

In _Discrimination Against the Dying_, Philip Reed argues, among other things, that ‘right to die laws (euthanasia and assisted suicide) also exhibit terminalism when they restrict eligibility to the terminally ill’. 1 Additionally, he suggests ‘the availability of the option of assisted death only for the terminally ill negatively influences the terminally ill who wish to live by causing them to doubt their choice’. 1 I argue that on scrutiny, neither of these two points hold. First, we routinely limit a (...) course of treatment to only those for whom we believe the treatment might provide a benefit. Typically, we do not think hastening death provides benefit when an individual is not experiencing a terminal illness. Thus, I conclude, either all treatments are discriminatory, or medical aid in dying is not. Second, I argue that permitting individuals to refuse or remove life sustaining care may very well cause... (shrink)

A growing body of literature has engaged with mass incarceration as a public health problem. This article reviews some of that literature, illustrating why and how bioethicists can and should engage with the problem of mass incarceration as a remediable cause of health inequities. “Mass incarceration” refers to a phenomenon that emerged in the United States fifty years ago: imprisoning a vastly larger proportion of the population than peer countries do, with a greatly disproportionate number of incarcerated people being members (...) of marginalized racial and ethnic groups. Bioethicists have long engaged with questions of health justice for incarcerated people, including consent issues for those participating in research and access to health care. This article provides an overview of the individual and public health impacts of mass incarceration. The article argues that mass incarceration is a bioethics issue that should be addressed in medical education, identifies opportunities for bioethicists to guide hospitals’ interactions with law enforcement officials, and calls on bioethicists to be in conversation with medical and nursing students and health care professionals about these groups’ advocacy efforts concerning structural racism, police violence, and mass incarceration. (shrink)

Explores intellectual and philosophical evolution of German philosopher Martin Heidegger, focusing on period after World War II. Analyzes how Heidegger s ideas, particularly his notion of being, influenced and were influenced by postwar context, including confrontation with Nazism and emergence of new philosophical currents. Argues that Heidegger s work offers relevant insights for contemporary philosophical debates and calls for a critical dialogue with his legacy. Discusses Heidegger s philosophy in the context of French and German philosophical schools, highlighting relevance of (...) his ideas and impact they had on contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

Social suffering commands increasing public attention in the wake of several historical processes that have changed the ways victims are perceived. In making suffering eloquent by rendering it in conceptual form, philosophy runs the risk of muting suffering, thereby neutralizing its ability to mobilize responses. In the experience of suffering philosophy finds a limit it must recognize as its own. Yet only by fulfilling its duty towards suffering - only by having the abolition of suffering as its ultimate goal - (...) can philosophical thinking withstand a tacit complicity with injustice. (shrink)

The conflict in Gaza and Israel that ignited on October 7, 2023 signals a catastrophic breakdown in the possibility of ethical dialogue in the region. The actions on both sides have revealed a dissolution of ethical restraints, with unimaginably cruel attacks on civilians, murder of children, destruction of health facilities, and denial of basic needs such as water, food, and shelter. There is a need both to understand the nature of the ethical singularity represented by this conflict and what, if (...) any, options are available to allow the reconstruction of communication between the warring parties. This article seeks to address these tasks by analysing the conflict as inherently an ethical one, in the sense that it exposes a rupture in the fabric of communicative relationships that has evolved systematically out of the deep cultural structures from which all protagonists have emerged. Drawing on the work of Levinas, Habermas, Arendt, and others, and referring to the specific circumstances in the region, it examines the ethical sources of the crisis and tries to identify conditions for its resolution. The possibility of reconciliation—that is, of refiguring relationships to open up a space for dialogue to create pathways to heal the ruptures—is examined. The dark legacy of the Holocaust is identified as an abiding cultural vulnerability for both societies. It is concluded, however, that the rich history of partnerships and collaborations between Jews and Palestinians provides a robust infrastructure on the basis of which a sustainable peace might be built, providing a much-needed source of hope. (shrink)

Some individuals facing dementia contemplate hastening their own death: weighing the possibility of living longer with dementia against the alternative of dying sooner but avoiding the later stages of cognitive and functional impairment. This weighing resonates with an ethical and legal consensus in the United States that individuals can voluntarily choose to forgo life‐sustaining interventions and also that medical professionals can support these choices even when they will result in an earlier death. For these reasons, whether and how a terminally (...) ill individual can choose to control the timing of their death is a topic that cannot be avoided when considering the dementia trajectory. With a focus on the U.S. context, this landscape review considers the status of provisions that would legally permit people facing dementia to hasten death with appropriate support from medical professionals. This review can be used to plan and guide clinical and legal practitioner discussion and policy development concerning evolving questions not fully covered by existing medical decision‐making provisions. (shrink)

En una época de éxodo masivo global, se explora el documental De Nadie (2005) de Tin Dirdamal, el cual, a través de una variedad de instancias narrativas, presenta la experiencia y condición migrante, aún actual, de centroamericanos en su tránsito por México en su camino hacia EE.UU. Frente a la exclusión en el pasado de personajes migrantes femeninos, el cine y la narrativa literaria contemporánea despliegan significados culturales y sociales que avivan la presencia de mujeres como protagonistas en el vertiginoso (...) cruce entre fronteras, bajo los regímenes de movilidad. Estas narrativas ponen en evidencia la trascendencia identitaria de las mujeres migrantes a partir del desplazamiento. En específico, en este trabajo se examina el documental De Nadie (2005) bajo la lupa de la performatividad de género de la hondureña María, antes y durante su recorrido migratorio. (shrink)

Nurses working in outreach capacities frequently encounter disaffiliated or ‘hard to reach’ populations, such as those experiencing homelessness, those who use substances, and those with mental health concerns. Despite best efforts, nurses regularly fail to find meaningful engagement with these populations. Mobilizing the work of Deleuze and Guattari, this paper will critically examine conventional outreach nursing practices as rooted in the royal science of psychiatry, which many ‘survivors’ of psychiatric interventions reject. The field of Mad Studies offers an understanding of (...) patient resistance to outreach nursing interventions. Delueze and Guattari's concepts of packs and sorcerers provide a framework to envision alternative nursing practices as a form of resistance and creativity, where new alliances may be formed outside the coercive confines of traditional practices. In response to patient resistance, outreach nurses themselves must assemble packs and engage in acts of sorcery. (shrink)

Ray and Cooper (2024) make a very compelling argument for vastly increasing bioethicists’ engagement with environmental justice. I strongly support this proposal and agree with their arguments. Yet...

In a challenge to Basic Emotion theories, Ortony suggested in a recent article that the existence of affect-free surprise means that surprise is not necessarily valenced and therefore arguably not an emotion. In an article in response, Neta and Kim argued that surprise is always valenced and therefore is an emotion, with apparent cases of affect-free surprise actually being cases of the cognitive state of unexpectedness rather than surprise. We view Neta and Kim's position as resting on an idiosyncratic stipulation (...) of word usage. We further suggest that rejecting affect-free surprise by appealing to examples of affect-laden surprise has no bearing on whether surprise is always valenced, and propose that when surprise appears to be affect-laden the locus of the experienced valence is a co-occurring emotion. (shrink)

A straight solution to Kripke’s problem proposed by Borisov is discussed in the article. The significance of the problem for modern philosophy of language and epistemology is established. Controversial aspects in Borisov’s study are analyzed. The main question is following. What solution to Kripke’s problem would be considered straight? It is argued that Borisov’s solution does not reach the level of a straight solution although it represents a significant step in this direction. The methodological importance of Borisov’s thesis that knowledge (...) of meaning is not an interpretation of the facts of speech behavior is substantiated. (shrink)

The grammatical manipulation and production of language is a great deceiver. We have become habituated to accept the use of well-constructed language to indicate intelligence, understanding and, consequently, intention, whether conscious or unconscious. But we are not always right to do so, and certainly not in the case of large language models (LLMs) like ChapGPT, GPT-4, LLaMA, and Google Bard. This is a perennial problem, but when one understands why it occurs, it ceases to be surprising that it so stubbornly (...) persists. This paper will have three main sections. In the Introduction I will say a little about language, its aetiology, and useful sub-divisions into natural and cultural. In the second section I will explain the current situation with regard to large language models and fill in the background debates which set the problem up as one of increased complexity rather than one of a qualitatively different kind from narrow or specific AI. In the third section I will present the case for the missing phenomenological background and why it is necessary for the co-creation of shared meaning in both natural and cultural language, and I will conclude this section by presenting a rationale for why this situation arises and will continue to arise. Before we do any of this, I need to clarify one point: I do not wish to challenge the ascription of artificial general intelligence (AGI) to LLMs, indeed I think agnosticism is best in this respect, but I do challenge the more serious, and erroneous, ascription of understanding, intention, reason, and consciousness to them. And so, I am making two points: an epistemological one about why we fall into error in our ascription of a mental life to LLMs, and an ontological one about the impossibility of LLMs being or becoming conscious. (shrink)

Remhof contends that Nietzsche is a metaphysician. According to his Meta-Metaphysical Argument, Nietzsche’s texts satisfy the criteria for an adequate conception of metaphysics. According to his Constructivist Argument, Nietzsche adopts a metaphysical position on which concepts’ application conditions constitute the identity conditions of their objects. This article critically appraises these arguments. I maintain that the criteria advanced in the Meta-Metaphysical Argument are collectively insufficient for delineating metaphysics as a distinct field of inquiry and that the Constructivist Argument attributes a position (...) to Nietzsche that remains vulnerable to his evaluative and psychological indictments of two-world metaphysics. I conclude by discussing how these objections might help non-metaphysical readers of Nietzsche resist Remhof’s interpretation. (shrink)

Background Machine learning (ML) is utilized increasingly in health care, and can pose harms to patients, clinicians, health systems, and the public. In response, regulators have proposed an approach that would shift more responsibility to ML developers for mitigating potential harms. To be effective, this approach requires ML developers to recognize, accept, and act on responsibility for mitigating harms. However, little is known regarding the perspectives of developers themselves regarding their obligations to mitigate harms.Methods We conducted 40 semi-structured interviews with (...) developers of ML predictive analytics applications for health care in the United States.Results Participants varied widely in their perspectives on personal responsibility and included examples of both moral engagement and disengagement, albeit in a variety of forms. While most (70%) of participants made a statement indicative of moral engagement, most of these statements reflected an awareness of moral issues, while only a subset of these included additional elements of engagement such as recognizing responsibility, alignment with personal values, addressing conflicts of interests, and opportunities for action. Further, we identified eight distinct categories of moral disengagement reflecting efforts to minimize potential harms or deflect personal responsibility for preventing or mitigating harms.Conclusions These findings suggest possible facilitators and barriers to the development of ethical ML that could act by encouraging moral engagement or discouraging moral disengagement. Regulatory approaches that depend on the ability of ML developers to recognize, accept, and act on responsibility for mitigating harms might have limited success without education and guidance for ML developers about the extent of their responsibilities and how to implement them. (shrink)

In this article, I explore Namita Goswami’s Subjects That Matter. Goswami has laid out an extensive excavation of the variety, depth, and breadth of antagonistic encounters between the Western world and subaltern subjects. I am interested in Goswami’s take on the production of the unknowable women of color who are constructed either as good wives, animate objects without wills of their own, or transgressors of the genre of producing women of color as oppressed. I argue that the question of heterogeneity (...) already assumes the very thing that is under question: to presuppose heterogeneity is already to presuppose its limit conditions—to already understand what difference looks like, which could preempt the possibility of infinite, or indefinite iterations. The irony is that we run the risk of assuming the very thing that we are trying not to presuppose, anticipate, or cordon off. Moreover, I question whether it is possible to encounter deep radical differences in any way other than antagonistically, since the unknown, from experience, is assumed to threaten. (shrink)

Using relevant encyclicals issued over the last 100 years, the author extracts those principles that constitute the underpinnings of Catholic Social Teaching about the employment relationship and contemplates implications of their incorporation into human resource policy. Respect for worker dignity, for his or her family's economic security, and for the common good of society clearly emerge as the primary guidelines for responsible human resource management. Dovetailing these three Church mandates with the economic objectives of the firm could, in essence, alter (...) the firm's nature because profit motivations would be constrained by consideration for worker and societal welfare. Integration of Church teaching with current corporate goals should therefore impact greatly on a variety of human resource policies. (shrink)

Feyerabend and others have been defending for some time the thesis that even observation sentences depend for their meanings on the thegries in which they play a role. According to the most radical version of this thesis, if two theories contain incompatible theoretical statements, then even if the observation terms and sentences associated with the two theories are the same, these terms and sentencesmeansomething different, according as they are associated with one theory or the other. This claim has made it (...) hard to see how, on this view, any two theories could be said to compete, or be incompatible, or be comparable on the basis of observation.The whole dispute over this claim seems highly suspect to begin with. For look at the philosophical terms in which it is couched. On the one hand there is the notion of the “meaning” of a term or sentence, whose status as a useful tool of philosophical analysis has been in serious question for the past two or three decades. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 489 universe enjoys as an ordered whole. What happens if the model does not present a universal order, as seems to have been the case for the last three centuries? Should we then remove the corresponding perfection from our idea of universe's perfection? Or is there some metaphysical reason for asserting that the universe is an ordered whole, regardless of any particular model? If the latter, it (...) would be interesting to have at least a sketch of how we would arrive at this position. On the whole, certainly, the book provides an invaluable overview of the Thomistic universe for anyone working on Aquinas's cosmology, metaphysics, or even ethics. Blanchette is to be commended for his clear and orderly presentation of the material, especially the many subdivisions within the chapters. The quotations of Thomistic texts are almost all in English, well translated by Banchette himself. The placing of key phrases in Latin within parentheses helps in some measure to overcome the lack of the original text in the footnotes. Finally, the book's selected bibliography as well as its indices (index of names, analytical index, and index of citations) render the book an even more useful tool. The Catholic University ofAmerica Washington, D.C. DAVID M. GALLAGHER Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions. By DAVID B. BURRELL, C.S.C. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993. Pp. xi + 225. $29.95 (cloth). According to the author, this book, Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions, is a comparative work designed "to illustrate the worth of explicitly tradition-directed inquiry, as well as the fruitfulness of comparative inquires in philosophical theory" (6). In addition, among other things, the author contends that, "because the pressure of comparative perspectives demands that we mine hitherto unsuspected reaches of what we have thought we know," not only the author but also the "traditional disciplines of philosophy and theology may each be enriched by the forays of such inquiry" (6). Specifically, the three traditions to which Burrell is referring are the Jewish, Islamic, and Christian; and, as the title of this book suggests, the central topics of consideration used as the basis for a comparison among these traditions are the respective notions of freedom and creation. In order to achieve his goals, Burrell places his discussion within the general context of the notion of creation, which, as he rightly observes, "is notoriously difficult to classify" (7). In so doing, he divides the work into nine chapters; which he entitles as follows: 1) "The Context: Creation"; 2) "On 490 BOOK REVIEWS Characterizing the Creator"; 3) "On Characterizing Creation"; 4) "On Characterizing the Relation: Jewish, Christian, Muslim"; 5) "God's Acting in the World God Creates"; 6) "Creatures Acting in a Created World"; 7) "On the Relations between the Two Actors"; 8) "Sin and Redemption"; 9) "The God Realized in Renewed Creation." Having placed his discussion within the general context of the notion of creation, Burrell begins his analysis by comparing and contrasting this notion in St. Thomas and Moses Maimonides vis-a-vis the necessitarianism of Aristotle as interpreted by lbn Sina. In so doing, Burrell stresses that what predominates in both Maimonides and Aquinas is a notion of God as a "free originator" of all creation not in relation to an "exegesis of the opening chapters of Genesis" but in relation "to the rest of the Bible and the subsequent tradition of Judaism and Christianity" (12). This "distillation" having been noted, Burrell then examines the distinctive features of the notion of creation as this is influenced by the "faith assertion " of the three respective religious traditions-Jewish, Christian, and Islamic. Within Judaism Burrell finds emphasis placed upon the need to interpret creation against the background of the "covenant" with Israel (19). In Aquinas and Barth he understands this activity to be interpreted against the background of the relation of the Father to His Eternal Word (19-21); and within Islam he finds the regulating theme in the conviction of God's absolute sovereignty vis-a-vis the created order. In chapter 2, Burrell goes into more precise detail regarding the specific ways in which God is characterized as a creator within the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:690 BOOK REVIEWS Galileo, Bellarmine and the Bible. By RICHARD J. BLACKWELL. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 1991. Pp. 272. $29.95 {cloth). Although this well-hound, manageable volume, complete with an artistic seventeenth-century dust jacket, has not received an official ecclesiastical "imprimatur," nevertheless, it is (according to this Dominican reviewer) both free from doctrinal error and filled with true and useful historical, philosophical, and theological information. Seemingly no (...) other case in the history of our western intellectual tradition has generated more controversy, more ill feeling, and more mutual misunderstanding across more lines of intellectual, political, and religious division than the "Galileo affair." Few people today are equipped historically, scientifically, philosophically, and theologically to discuss accurately the wide range of issues surrounding this unfortunate incident. A seasoned veteran of the strong historical, philosophical tradition of the Jesuit-run St. Louis University, and himself an active member of the Roman Catholic Church, Richard J. Blackwell, historian of philosophy and philosopher of science, has done a marvelous service to the academic community hy presenting us with this volume. In this well-researched, well-argued, and very readable manuscript, Blackwell helps to place Galileo's intellectual and ecclesiastical struggle within the broader historical, philosophical, religious, and theological context of rthe late 16th and early 17th centuries. Quoting the words of Olaf Pedersen, Blackwell considers the Galileo affair " not only as an episode in the history of science, but also as an important event in the history of theology" {p. 3). His principal purpose in writing this book is " to study the Galileo affair from this perspective " and, in particular, to understand "the role played by the Bible in the Galileo affair" (p. 3). Without attempting to praise, to blame, or to excuse, Blackwell sets out to understand precisely how it was that the historical, religious, and theological factors came to have such a profound effect on the scientific and philosophical questions of Galileo's time. He argues convincingly that the Roman insistence on upholding the traditional interpretation of certain key biblical passages can he understood adequately only within the historical and religious climate of postTridentine theology, Jesuit obedience, and strict adherence to the Thomistic synthesis of philosophy and theology. Toward this end, Blackwell brings together for the first time certain important texts, concepts, and historical arguments that help to alleviate some of the " murkiness " blurring our view of the Galileo affair, and help to make that incident more intelligible to our modern minds. BOOK REVIEWS 691 Blackwell argues that the Roman hierarchy was not so much concerned with the content of the new astronomy as it was determined to reassert itself as the authentic interpreter of Scripture and tradition. According to Blackwell, the new astronomy challenged not only the philosophy of Aristotle and the theology of Thomas Aquinas, but, perhaps more importantly, it challenged the ecclesiastical authority of the Roman hierarchy in its role as interpreter and teacher of the Apostolic faith. How could the new astronomy be anything but a hypothetical model, when it so clearly contradicted the words of Scripture as in· terpreted by the Church Fathers? How could mere mathematicians and astronomers insist on philosophical propositions that seemed to make the Bible false? No single individual was invested with the authority to interpret the Bible for the whole body of believers, as the Church had so painfully learned from the lessons of the Protestant Reformers. That authority lay solely with the "Church," that is, with the Roman hierarchy, the Pope in union with a council, as was clear from the canons and decrees of the Council of Trent. Moreover, strict obedience was the order of the day as many Jesuit thinkers so agonizingly came to realize. Blackwell divides his own text into seven chapters: (1) Trent and Beyond; (2) Bellarmine's Views Before the Galileo Affair; (3) Gali· leo's Detour into Biblical Exegesis; (4) Foscarini's Bombshell; (5) The Bible at Galileo's Trial (6) The Jesuit Dilemma: Truth or Obedience ; and (7) Reflections on Truth in Science and in Religion. In the first two chapters, he establishes a context for the Galileo affair by discussing :the theological interpretation and importance of the Council of Trent... (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to analyze the meaning of examples in C. Hempel’s works. Hempel uses many examples referring to readings of magnetic hand, burning of white phosphorus, predictions of properties of some elements of the table of Mendeleev, to astrophysical hypotheses, terms of total solar eclipse, throwing of dice, as well as on unmarried men, on white and black swans, green mermaids, black crows and white shoes, blue roses, predictions of Jones’ recovery, the eruption of Vesuvius, the (...) assassination of Julius Caesar, and other “special cases” and “concrete facts”. The question is raised as to whether the case studies are mere illustrative material, a form of argumentation; a way of verifying Hempel’s ideas, their “demonstrable confirmation”, and in this sense a definite empirical basis for the study. The necessity of analyzing concrete examples in the context of Hempel’s theoretical research is shown, for which the examples turn out to be an occasion for investigating the logic of confirmation and the logic of explanation, for analyzing the structures of explanans and explanandum, for understanding the differences in inductive and deductive logical constructions, and for analyzing “quasi-induction”. The paper discusses Hempel’s famous example, the crow paradox, which is named in his honor and is a kind of logical provocation. (shrink)

One of the major problems in contemporary philosophy of mind is the dualism of first-person and third-person perspectives — the question of whether conscious experience is public and epistemically accessible or private and qualitative. Recognising the relevance of the arguments of both sides, naturalists and anti-naturalists, I attempt to resolve this dichotomy using Bruno Latour’s methodology on the theories of Immanuel Kant and Moritz Schlick. To do so, I propose not to reduce the theory of consciousness to one interpretation, but (...) to consider conscious experience as a “boundary object” between the spheres of the private and the public, the accessible and the qualitative, the unique and the reproducible. Through the “practice of translation” I demonstrate the failure of ontologies of conscious experience proposed by both naturalism and anti-naturalism, and propose an “intersectional theory” as an alternative theory of conscious experience that affirms, on the one hand, the uniqueness of the individual’s epistemic position and, on the other hand, its reproducibility and communicability. I introduce the term “intersectional locality” to denote the ontological status of conscious experience. In the next step, I return to the necessary (according to Latour) “practice of purification” of those epistemic zones whose fusion was outlined earlier, which allows me to recognise the intuition behind the dichotomy of the two perspectives as legitimate and requiring conceptualisation. The mediation of Schlick’s positivist theory and Kant’s transcendentalist theory allows us to present first-person and third-person perspectives as two epistemic registers, subordinated to the position of a historically specific conscious subject. I treat the first-person perspective as a reflective power of judgment, and the third-person perspective as a determinative power of judgment; doing so, I establish the connection between the qualitative interpretation of phenomenal experience and the aesthetic principle of the reflective power of judgment. I conclude that conscious experience as a subject matter of research is a hybrid object, and only the project of “nonmodern” science will make it possible to create a relevant theory of consciousness that does not resort to reduction. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:570 BOOK REVIEWS like reasonable rule for economic life. This effort is worthy of more attention than is possible here, but let it be noted that it must inevitably suffer the same fate as any ethical calculus: someone must decide for others what is their due and what is not. How much wealth, for example, makes for a concentration [of wealth] that would be " demonstrably detrimental to some (...) people's exercise of their generic rights "? His is ultimately an entitlement or rights ethic, rather than an aitial ethic of goal-purposive fulfillment for the individual, projected outwards for a common good scenario. While his rejection of goal ethics's inability to detail principles for distribution of goods is noteworthy, it does not appear that a tightened version of generic rights theory will come closer to either of Phillips's desiderata: a justification of moral reasoning apart from any theory of nature or a calculus for its application. Desan and Phillips wish to think against the limits of the human situation. For Desan, rising above limitation is a moral task and obligation facing us each, if there is to be a common future. His call is to be World Citizen in a Polis of Nations. Phillips's vision is more concrete, a distribution of benefits to benefit all with well-being and freedom. But this mundane task is no less difficult than Desan's transcendent one. Indeed, according to Augustine, even the Divine Mind must utilize an artifice in dealing with human creation: "He loves each of us as though there were only one of us." Both ethicists have striven to show us how we might think this vision for ourselves, i.e., for each other of us. ]OIIN B. DAVIS, O.P. ' Detroit, Michigan Catholics, Anglicans, and Puritans: Seventeenth-Century Essays. By HUGH TREVOR-ROPER. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988. Pp. xiii + 317. $27.50 (hardbound). Even to list the changes and events which occurred in seventeenth century England is a difficult task: the century spans the period from the death of Queen Elizabeth to the Glorious Revolution and beyond, through the Civil War, the accession and exile (twice) of the Stuarts, the rise of science, the transformation of the theological and religious issues of the English Reformation, to name only the most obvious. To conceive a book, in the form of occasional essays, which not only addresses these changes and events but does so by establishing the connections which were present with European currents at the same time surely tempts fate, even when it does not tempt reviewers. BOOK REVIEWS 571 But Hugh Trevor-Roper is a master, both of the period under survey and of the form of the essay. With one exception, each of these essays began as a lecture or seminar paper, and the pleasantly legible style in which they are written must bear some trace of that origin. The occasional flashes of wit, mixed with rthe fairly non-technical style, make the book a joy to read and a welcome escape from the usually constipated style of scholarly prose. In his Introduction, the essayist clearly sets forth his thesis that English intellectual history does not exist apart from the currents of European intellectual history (a thesis for which Trevor-Roper has already staked a claim). That leads to what may very well be the major problem with these essays: its end is in its beginning. The list of names cited in these essays only partially coincides with the list of names in the index; the former is much longer than the latter. And while the style of the essay welcomes the reader to the period, it also throws up more names and places and events than can be explained or even annotated adequately. This occurs both on a large and on a small scale. The first essay, on "Nicholas Hill, the English Atomist" contains such a vast array of names that at times it becomes the prosopo· graphical equivalent of a telephone book. On a large scale, there is the problem with a definition of Arminianism. No definition, at least no formal definition, is attempted-and this is probably wise. But, particularly in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS Galileo: For Copemicanism and for the Church. By ANNIBALE FANTOLI. Translated by George V. Coyne, S.J. Studi Galileiani Vol. 3. Vatican City: Vatican Observatory Publications, 1994. Distributed by the University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana. Pp. xix+ 540. $21.95 (paper). This exhaustive treatment of Galileo and his relationship to the Church was first published in Italian by the Vatican Observatory in 1993 as Vol. 2 (...) of its Studi Galileiani series, bearing the title Galileo: Per il Copemicanesimo e per la Chiesa. So excellent was the study that Father George Coyne, the director of the Vatican Observatory, took it on himself personally to translate the volume into English. Although not a member of the Galileo Commission set up by Pope John Paul II to review the Galileo case, as were Coyne and myself, Fantoli has admirably complemented the work of the Commission and his book surely belongs in the Studi Galileiani collection. A former Jesuit with degrees in mathematics and physics, Fantoli began the book more than twenty-five years ago when he was preparing a course on Galileo at Sophia University in Tokyo. His intention was to show that for Galileo it was never a question of choosing between Copernicanism and the Church, and that the saddest drama of his life was being faced with an injunction that forced him to befor the Church and against Copemicanism. The subtitle of his book proclaims Galileo's true intentions, despite his failure to convince others that this was what his life was all about. A great strength of Fantoli's treatment is its documentation, which abounds in excerpts from Galileo's writings and his correspondence as found in the National Edition of his works and also in citations from new materials that have been uncovered by the Galileo Commission. Thanks to Coyne, all of these texts, many of which were hitherto available only in Latin or Italian, can now be easily accessed in English translation. Another strength of Fantoli's work is that he has kept abreast of Galileo literature over the years and thus is able to offer scholarly critiques of authors whose works exhibit a bias against the Church. Especially welcome are his careful discussions of the positions of earlier writers such as Giorgio de Santillana, Ludovico Geymonat, and Stillman Drake, as well as those of more recent authors, Mario Biagioli, Maurice Finocchiaro, Pietro Redondi, William R. Shea, and Richard S. Westfall. The book is a tour de force and there is little to criticize in it. Unfortunately, however, a typesetting error at its very beginning might create 317 318 BOOK REVIEWS the wrong impression and throw off prospective readers. About six lines of text were omitted at the bottom of page 9. To remedy this the following words should be inserted between the end of page 9 and the beginning of page 10: confused with the Sun) which had heen worked out by Philolaus (about 475 B.C.) within the context of the Pythagorean school.9 In a further modification of this theory the central fire as well as the hypothesis of an anti-earth were done away with, which left the earth at the center of the universe. To offset this addition, the last six lines on the bottom of page 10 should be deleted, for these lines are repeated at the top of page 11. Otherwise, with this change, the exposition reads correctly. The remaining typographical errors are few and in no case do they affect the sense. After a brief introduction in which he presents the astronomical concepts necessary for understanding the details of the Copernican debate, Fantoli divides his treatment into seven chapters. The first two of these are devoted to Galileo's early life and teaching at the Universities of Pisa and Padua, his perfection of the telescope, and the beginnings of the controversies about the earth's motion that were provoked by his telescopic discoveries, The next three chapters then take up the scriptural arguments in detail, Galileo's battle with the Jesuits over the comets of 1618 and his The Assayer of 1623, and his resumption of the Copernican program with the publication of his Dialogue... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS The Inference That Makes Science. By ERNAN McMULLIN. The Aquinas Lecture, 1992. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1992. Pp. iv +112. In this ambitious lecture Father Ernan McMullin recapitulates and refines a thesis that has guided his thought for the past forty years. In essence the thesis is this: precisely how science is made has eluded the best minds for centuries, and only in the work of Charles (...) Sanders Peirce, suitably emended by McMullin, has the puzzle finally been solved. " Retroduction " is the inference that makes science. Once this is understood, errors on what constitutes scientific method-those of Aristotle, Aquinas, Galileo, Newton, Bacon, Hume, et al.-can be rectified and one can see science for what it truly is: a complex process of theory appraisal that yields, not definitive truth, but well-established results to which assent can be given with at best "practical certainty," whatever that might be (pp. 91-96). Why McMullin should have chosen such a theme for an Aquinas Lecture is a question that defies reasonable answer. Surely one does not have to he so negative about the thought of Aristotle, Aquinas, and Galileo to advance one's ideas about science in the present day. What McMullin could easily have done, and he hints at this in the last two paragraphs of his lecture (pp. 97-98), is show how retroduction is itself simply a relaxed version of the demonstrative regress, the method actually endorsed by Aristotle, Aquinas, and Galileo. Such a retroductive version, fair enough, yields knowledge of a probable cause, the type of knowledge most typical of modern science. McMullin did not have to embark on the dangerous course of trying to prove that proof and certainty are forever beyond the grasp of science, or that never in the history of science has anyone established a definitive truth. That, in effect, is what McMullin has tried to do, and in the attempt to make the point he fumbles at almost every juncture throughout a very long lecture. To set the record straight more than a review is being re--·quested; perhaps a book, and even that might not suffice for those whose minds are made up. To understand the import of the lecture one must appreciate that it is hut a brief episode in a debate over demonstration in science that has been going on since McMullin first came to the University of Notre Dame in 1954. I myself have published many hooks and articles that engage the very point of his lecture and provide the contra evidence to 131 132 BOOK REVIEWS show elements of continuity in scientific method from Aristotle to the present. My last two volumes, in press at the same time as McMullin's Aquinas Lecture, answer in detail the aporiai he there raises.1 I need 1 Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof. The Backgrnund, Content, and Use of His Appropriated Treatises on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 137. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992, xxiii + 323 pp.; Galileo's Logical Treatises. A Translation, with Notes and Commentary, of His Appropriated Questions on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 138. DordrechtBoston -London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992, xix + 239 pp. only refer the interested reader to them for an extended and documented reply to his arguments. Some idea of the flavor of our debate, however, can be gained from the following. To support his thesis, McMullin has to maintain that Aristotle's proof that the moon is a sphere (from its having phases) and that Galileo's proofs that there are mountains on the moon, that Jupiter has satellites, and that Venus circles the sun (all based on telescopic observations) are not strictly demonstrative, that is, they do not yield true and certain conclusions. He declines to answer a query I have often tendered whether he personally is certain on the basis of pre-spacecraft evidence that the moon is a sphere, that there are mountains on it, that Jupiter has satellites, and so on. Instead he offers the categorical response "that planetary science is not an apodictic science, indeed that no natural science is... (shrink)

IntroductionThis paper is about how the future is conceived and perceived in military policy circles. The recent proliferation of terms used to articulate the likely features of future warfare—“hybrid,” “unconventional,” and especially “deep” wars—suggests that far from witnessing a coherent military readjustment to future threats, we are instead seeing linguistic, largely bureaucratic efforts to think about the near future, and how we should respond today, in order to be prepared. These military-policy terms are meaningful within expert communities, and may even (...) express felt reality eloquently. However, on the front line, and in the public square, expert discourse smacks of bureaucratic involution, possibly even intentional obfuscation, thus generating paranoia about the true state of affairs. (shrink)

There is much in the responses by Dolores Morris, Doug Geivett, and Jim Beilby with which I fully agree. But here I try to clarify a few issues and to identify points where we might simply disagree. I focus on the issue of those who experience the world as godless (Dolores); broadening the definition of religious experience (Dolores and Doug); suggested revisions of the argument from fulfilled expectations (Dolores); and especially the vexing questions associated with epistemic peer disagreement (Jim and (...) Doug). (shrink)

The developers of ecological ethics claim that the rationale of anthropocentrism is false. Its main message is that natural complexes and resources exist to be useful to the human being who sees them only from the perspective of using them and does not take into account their intrinsic value. Kant’s anthropocentric teaching argues that the instrumental attitude to nature has its limits. These limits are hard to determine because the anthropocentrists claim that the human being is above nature. Indeed, the (...) “human exclusiveness thesis” (J.- M. Schaeffer) assumes that its advocates underestimate nature’s impact on humans and their connection to other living beings. Constructing a dialogue between Kant and Schaeffer helps to solve two problems. First, to determine whether Kant’s ethical and teleological concept is immune to Schaeffer’s critique. Second, to clarify the German philosopher’s contribution to environmental ethics. I come to the conclusion that it is premature to claim that consciousness and free will exist only in the framework of their being conditioned by nature. I also demonstrate that in his teleological teaching Kant sees the mechanism of nature as the dependence of living things on forces that act in an unpremeditated manner. Recognition of these forces sets limits to humans’ instrumental attitude to nature and paves the way for them to become moral subjects. Thus, Kant’s teaching combines “the human exclusiveness thesis” and the intuitions of the representatives of deep ecology and the opponents of anthropocentrism as such. (shrink)

The place occupied by Kant’s philosophical ideas in the reflections of the Russian philosopher, Nikolay Strakhov, needs further study. The material for a historical-philosophical reconstruction of Strakhov’s reception of Kant’s philosophy is the Russian thinker’s home library catalogue, his correspondence and his own philosophical works. Among Strakhov’s interlocutors were not only philosophers and natural scientists, but also writers, including Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy and Afanasy Fet, who in many ways determined the cultural and intellectual horizon of the epoch. The many (...) years of correspondence with the last two writers went a long way to shape and develop Strakhov’s perception of Kant as a thinker. Indeed, without a virtual dialogue with Kant no modern philosophical system can be built. Strakhov’s reflections on the Kantian style of thinking, adoption of Kantian criticism as the model of epistemic analysis in many ways determined the features of his own philosophical work and became a catalyst of renewed interest in Russia in the Kantian philosophy in the last third of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

Warne's original study provides an insightful analysis of the role of contemplation and creation in the thought of Josef Pieper, illustrating the importance of this practice to earthly happiness and human flourishing. What is the relationship between creation, contemplation, human flourishing, and moral development? Nathaniel Warne's Josef Pieper on the Spiritual Life offers a sophisticated answer to this question through a systematic analysis of philosopher Josef Pieper's (1904-1997) thought. Warne's examination centers on the role of contemplation and creation in Pieper's (...) thinking, arguing that contemplation of the created order is a key feature of earthly happiness. By emphasizing the importance of contemplation, Pieper illustrates the deep interconnections between ethics, creation, and spirituality. For Warne, to posit a binary between the contemplative life and active life creates a false dichotomy. Following Pieper, Warne claims that theology and spirituality cannot be bracketed from ethics and social action--indeed, our lived experience in the world blurs the lines between these practices. Contemplation and action are closer together than are typically assumed, and both have important implications for both our spiritual development and our engagement with the world around us. Ultimately, Warne's emphasis on creation and contemplation represents an attempt to resist a view of ethics and the spiritual life that is divorced from our environment. In response to this view, Warne argues that we need a renewed sense that creation and place are important for self-understanding. Contemplation of creation is, at bottom, a form of communion with God--we thus need a more robust sense of how ethics and politics are rooted in God's creative action. Taking Pieper as a guide, Warne's study helps to deepen our thinking about these connections. (shrink)

Formalized Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) programs have become a compliance requirement. Yet evidence consistently demonstrates that compliance-based ethics training focused on teaching regulations and “rules” fails to create ethical cultures. Research and practice in behavioral ethics have demonstrated that there is value in moving away from rule-based, normative, ethics education toward approaches rooted in descriptive explainations about how and why individuals make unethical decisions, and focused on environmental and cultural influences. We examine the circumstances—and subsequent assumptions—that lead to compliance-based (...) RCR training, unpack those assumptions, and identify their outcomes. The question at the heart of compliance-based training is “What must we teach people so they will make ethical decisions?” The command-and-control nature of this question fails to encompass needed elements for broader research integrity, namely, developing ethical habits and building skills for ethical decision-making. Asking instead “How do we develop people to articulate and act in alignment with ethical values?” helps to shift toward more effective and sustainable ethics education. Educating about ethical decision-making develops people who are more practically wise and who can influence the cultures of the environments in which they work. We conclude by offering examples of ethics education and development that are asking the right question and include information about our own leadership development program for elite laboratory scientists that is seeking to support ethical and healthy working cultures. (shrink)

This paper examines the perceived ethical values of Malaysian managers. It is based on the opinions of 15 hypothetical ethical/unethical business situations from the 81 managers who agreed to participate in the survey. The findings of this study showed that these Malaysian managers have high ethical values. However 53% of the respondents believed that the ethical standards of today are lower than that of 15 years ago. Apparently, this is related to the existence of many unethical business practices prevalent in (...) the modern business world. The behavior of one's immediate superior is the most important factor in influencing managers to commit unethical practices. The results also indicate only a slight variation among the managers in terms of perceived ethical values by virtue of job position, job specialization, type of business activity or the size of the business organization. (shrink)

The target article covers a large amount of ground and offers a provocative perspective. This commentary focuses on (a) assumptions, namely that there are discrete stages in the creative process and that novelty and usefulness are inextricable, (b) hidden variables in the creativity–curiosity relationship, and (c) the difference between an explanation of creativity versus a description of influence on it.

The act of exchanging one thing for another seems to involve a promise. The confidence needed to relinquish something one has on the understanding that one will receive what another has in exchange can be expressed in terms of resolve. In binding oneself, one thinks that if the other binds himself or herself to perform a given action, then he or she will do that action. In cases in which one person's action does not precede the other's, one's promise involves (...) thinking that if the other binds himself or herself, then he or she will carry out the promised action. (shrink)

Improvements in the health capital of citizens are central to the development of countries. By exploiting steep decreases in antiretroviral drug prices and the subsequent increases in antiretroviral therapy (ART) coverage, we test whether the resulting improvements in the health of the population are associated with the prevalence of entrepreneurial activity and whether entrepreneurial activity strengthens the relationship between ART coverage and a country’s development. Drawing on a sample of 87 low- and middle-income countries (2006–2019), we find that a 1% (...) increase in ART coverage is associated with a 1.5% increase in the number of newly registered limited liability firms; however, there is no significant relationship with (male or female) self-employment. Higher ART coverage is particularly associated with development—as proxied by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and the Human Development Index—in countries with low levels of new business formation and high proportions of self-employment. (shrink)