Lawrence Weschler, A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers New York: Pantheon, 1990, ix + 293 pp.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of MoralsIan RossDavid Hume. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. Tom L. Beauchamp, editor. The Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.An edition of Hume's philosophic writings on rigorous, modern bibliographic principles has long been a scholarly desideratum. Readers in the many fields in which Hume's thought and style have made a profound impression (...) have basically relied on the originals or derivatives of efforts of the Victorian era. One is Hume's Philosophical Works (4 v., London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1874-75), edited by the Oxford dons, T. H. Green and T. H. Grose. Well-known for his idealist philosophy and theory of liberalism, Green contributed introductions to the first and second volumes criticizing Hume from an anti-empirical standpoint. Grose offered a "History of [Hume's] Editions" as an introduction to the third volume, and claimed to have revised Hume's text throughout. This edition has the virtue of comprehensiveness, but is deficient in its offering of variant readings. Later there came from Oxford University Press editions of the Treatise of Human Nature (1888), deemed generally sound, and the two Enquiries (1894), marred by departures from Hume's text, prepared by a prominent civil servant, Sir Lawrence Amherst Selby-Bigge, whose chief contribution was to provide useful analytical indices. An attempt at achieving higher editorial standards was made by P. H. Nidditch, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Sheffield, in a "second" edition of Selby-Bigge's Treatise (1976) and a "third" edition of his text of the Enquiries (1975). Limits were imposed by Oxford University Press, apparently unwilling to make more then small changes in the existing pages. Nidditch announced (Enquiries, 1975, at p.348, n.2) that he had a "fresh" edition in preparation, but he did not live to complete this project.In the event, the challenge to produce a critical edition of Hume's philosophical, political, and literary writings was canvassed at early meetings of the Hume Society formed in 1973. Thereafter, in 1982, a team of general editors was formed by T. L. Beauchamp, D. F. Norton, and M. A. Stewart, determined to organize and finish the task in hand, and Oxford University Press finally conceded it was time to replace Selby-Bigge. With the appearance of Tom Beauchamp's "critical edition" of the second Enquiry (hereafter identified as EPM), published on 4 August 1999, but bearing the date 1998, the long wait for a reliable text, bibliographic apparatus, and ancillary scholarship, worthy of Hume, must be declared over.If we grant that it is appropriate to introduce the new Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume with the piece he deemed "best," it must also be asked why he made this judgment. Philosophers have generally held that his Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) is the most profound and searching statement of his epistemological and moral thought, but its seeming lack of immediate success with readers made Hume dissatisfied with it. Such were his negative feelings, coupled with irritation at attacks on him focused on this "juvenile" work, that he partially repudiated the Treatise at the end of his life. He wrote an "Advertisement" to this effect, and it was inserted as a preface to the authoritative and posthumous 1777 edition of his Essays and Treatises. Here he stated he was "sensible of the error of going to the press too early, and he cast the whole [of [End Page 280] the Treatise] anew in the following pieces [including EPM], where some negligences in his former reasoning and more in the expression, are, he hopes, corrected" (EPM Intro., xii-xiii, n.4).On the evidence of Beauchamp's editorial labors, it would appear that EPM is Hume's "best" work in this sense. It represents the most thorough recasting of source material provided by the Treatise. Its essential moral principles and psychological insights about the passions are retained, but "readability and elegance" are achieved by pruning, simplifying, and compacting the Treatise's complex teaching, while adding a wealth of illustrative material drawn from Hume's mature reflection on his subject and... (shrink)

“Public health legal preparedness” is a term born in the ferment, beginning in the late 1990s, that has led to unprecedented recognition of the essential role law plays in public health and, even more recently, in protecting the public from terrorism and other potentially catastrophic health threats.The initial articulation of public health has not kept pace with rapid evolution in the concept and in practical development of public health preparedness itself. This poses the risk that legal preparedness may fall behind (...) construction of general readiness in the public health system—and may, in fact, undercut achievement of comprehensive public health preparedness for massive threats to health in both the United States and world-wide. Inadvertent results might include both negative health impacts and infringement on individual rights. (shrink)

“Public health legal preparedness” is a term born in the ferment, beginning in the late 1990s, that has led to unprecedented recognition of the essential role law plays in public health and, even more recently, in protecting the public from terrorism and other potentially catastrophic health threats.The initial articulation of public health has not kept pace with rapid evolution in the concept and in practical development of public health preparedness itself. This poses the risk that legal preparedness may fall behind (...) construction of general readiness in the public health system—and may, in fact, undercut achievement of comprehensive public health preparedness for massive threats to health in both the United States and world-wide. Inadvertent results might include both negative health impacts and infringement on individual rights. (shrink)

The potential for biased responses that occur when researchers interact with their study participants has long been of interest to both academicians and practitioners. Given the sensitive nature of the field, researcher interaction biases are of particular concern for business ethics researchers regardless of their preference for survey, experimental, or qualitative methodology. Whereas some ethics researchers may inadvertently bias data by misrecording or misinterpreting responses, other biases may occur when study participants' responses are systematically influenced by the mere introduction of (...) researchers into the participants' environment. Although substantial empirical research has been conducted on the general topic of researcher interaction biases, none has focused specifically on business ethics research. In order to remedy this lack of empirical substantiation in the field, we review the related literature on researcher interaction biases, present an empirical example of how such biases can influence research results in an experiment assessing reactions to insurance fraud, and discuss the implications for business ethics research. (shrink)

I. INTRODUCTIONIs Jesus the perfect human being? An affirmative response seems unavoidable for classical Christology. Indeed, at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the gathered bishops and representatives of the church across Africa, Asia, and Europe agreed that Jesus Christ was “perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity”: teleion…en Theótæti kai teleion…en anthropótæti.Theologians and patristics scholars alike often sort through the second part of this formula in the way that the remainder of the conciliar definition itself seems to indicate, interpreting (...) it to mean that nothing that belongs to the humanity we share can be lacking in the humanity of Jesus, and nothing belongs to Him that would compromise the human form. He does not, for instance, have a body animated by a divine spirit in place of a human will, or a superhuman ability to translocate. This is theologically appropriate as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. (shrink)

Antimicrobial resistance is a critical public health challenge, and the contribution of the widespread use of antimicrobials in food animals to bacterial drug resistance and human infection demands greater policymaker attention. Global consumption of antimicrobials in food animal production by 2030 is projected to rise by two-thirds due to increases in both food animal production and demand for animal products. In the United States, the volume of antibiotics sold for use in food-producing animals is at least three times greater than (...) that sold for human use. A One Health approach that emphasizes the connections among the health of humans, animals, and the environment is needed to address antibiotic resistance in an integrated manner. This approach holds the promise of collaboration across multiple disciplines, including doctors, veterinarians, food safety professionals, and environmental health experts. (shrink)

Insurance claim fraud costs insurance companies, policymakers, and taxpayers billions of dollars every year and has been described as the second largest white collar crime. The most common insurance fraud activity and one that contributes a significant portion of dollar losses is the practice of padding claim amounts in the event of a loss. One of the largest issues insurance companies face is that policyholders often do not perceive insurance claim padding as an unethical behavior. However, very little research has (...) examined the factors that contribute to such perceptions. Considering how consumers often attempt to justify fraudulent behavior from a fairness perspective, the present work examines how the amount of the deductible in an insurance claim situation can influence feelings of fairness and ethicality. The results of an experimental study show that higher deductible amounts result in stronger perceptions that insurance claim padding is fair to the insurance company, weaker perceptions that the behavior is unethical, and higher proposed claim award amounts. The study also shows, however, that the deductible amount effects are attenuated for consumers who display higher ethical standards as reflected by their scores on the consumer ethics scale. Implications are discussed with respect to the insurance industry, deviant consumer behavior, and general business ethics theory. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Book Reviews Bibliography on Plato's "'Laws, "" 1920-1970: With Additional Citations through May, 1975. By Trevor J. Saunders. (New York: Arno Press, 1976. Pp. i + 60. $15.00) The Penguin Classics translator of the non-Socratic Laws, as Leo Strauss called them, has here compiled in a most usable way a thorough bibliography of books and articles about the Laws or parts of them. The section "Texts, Translations, and (...) Commentaries" properly excludes translations not made directly from the Greek. In previous centuries this would, also properly, have excluded many a famous or popular translation, such as Thomas Taylor's or Victor Cousin's, worked out from the text of M. Ficino's "first edition" in Latin. Given the state of the Greek text and the practice, inaugurated by Ficino, of improving upon the Greek in the translatioias, some notation about the literalness of the translations cited would have been of additional value. Section B, in thirty pages, is the largest and also deliberately the most selective in striving to limit itself to work concerned exclusively or primarily with the Laws. But it cannot avoid including much material about some aspect of Plato in general rather than about the Laws; this is especially true of the subsection, B1, on comprehensive accounts. Section B2, on the text and its tradition, has overwhelmingly more citations about the indirect tradition than about the texts themselves, an interesting indication of the current state of this question. The next subsections, to B12, divide according to subject matter. BI3 lists studies on the influence of the Laws. The last section, in twenty-four pages, is most valuable. It lists, by Stephanus page number, an abundance of discussions of individual passages from Book I through Book XII wherever these discussions, bibliographically speaking, may have occurred. Students of the Laws will be well served by, and most grateful to, Professor Saunders for this bibliography. I can only second the intent of his parting epigraph that sends us back to the study of the Laws themselves. But I must add that more explicitly detailed work appears to be required both on the difficulties the text itself presents to students of Plato (one thinks of A. Boeckh's analyses of the prose in Books I through III) and on those which arise when the Laws is contrasted--from the point of view of design and intellectuality--with those of Plato's works that are comparable, if not in number of pages, at least in scale of conception and monumentality. V. TEJERA SUNY at Stony Brook Science and Philosophy in Aristotle's Biological Works. By Anthony Preus. (Hildesheim and New York: George Olms, 1975. Pp. ix + 404. DM.88) A reciprocal influence between Aristotle's philosophy and biology--if it could be demonstrated through step-by-step criticism and not merely asserted in generalities about functionalism--might help to explain both, and might also itself be philosophically interesting ; for it should clarify Aristotle's concepts of form, essence, universal, and species-concepts which have been mercilessly jumbled in the traditional interpretations. With the failure of Jaegerian developmental analyses, we can hardly now hope for help from detailed chronology. But a general dating of Aristotle's biological interest to the Assos-Mytilene period, when he was already aged forty, is accepted by most people (though not by Jaeger who [463] 464 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY put it at the end, nor by Ryle who put it at the beginning of Aristotle's career) and is the basis of Anthony Preus's contention in this book. For if Aristotle began serious biology only in middle life we could expect a tension between the antiphenomenal metaphysics of the Academy, which he had just left after twenty years there, and the kind of philosophizing and explaining that might seem demanded by living concrete organisms. Preus sets out to show such a tension, claiming on page 1 that "in P. A. and G. A. sometimes the philosophical position is bent to fit the observed facts, and sometimes the observations are adjusted to fit the philosophical position." The reader may be assured at once that this appalling accusation (which is repeated in the publisher's blurb) is not... (shrink)

Law is indispensable to the public's health. The twentieth century proved this true as law contributed to each of the century's ten great public health achievements: vaccination, healthier mothers and babies, family planning, safer and healthier foods, fluoridation of drinking water, the control of infectious diseases, the decline in death from heart disease and stroke, recognition of tobacco use as a health hazard, motor vehicle safety, and safer workplaces.The readers of this journal can give examples of the relevant types of (...) laws with ease: Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the 1905 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of compulsory vaccination; mandatory immunization for school admission; authorization of state prenatal care programs; mandatory fortification of foods; Title X of the Public Health Service Act; the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906; the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, and hundreds of state and local enactments regulating food; fluoridation ordinanceswater, and sanitation; the Surgeon General's warning notices on cigarette packs and restrictions on marketing tobacco; seat belt laws and mandated vehicle and highway design features; and laws like the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 that regulate working conditions. (shrink)

Law is indispensable to the public's health. The twentieth century proved this true as law contributed to each of the century's ten great public health achievements: vaccination, healthier mothers and babies, family planning, safer and healthier foods, fluoridation of drinking water, the control of infectious diseases, the decline in death from heart disease and stroke, recognition of tobacco use as a health hazard, motor vehicle safety, and safer workplaces.The readers of this journal can give examples of the relevant types of (...) laws with ease: Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the 1905 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of compulsory vaccination; mandatory immunization for school admission; authorization of state prenatal care programs; mandatory fortification of foods; Title X of the Public Health Service Act; the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906; the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, and hundreds of state and local enactments regulating food; fluoridation ordinanceswater, and sanitation; the Surgeon General's warning notices on cigarette packs and restrictions on marketing tobacco; seat belt laws and mandated vehicle and highway design features; and laws like the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 that regulate working conditions. (shrink)

Theological language has always faced a fundamental dilemma: it seeks to put the divine reality into limited human language. While this dilemma can obfuscate our theological pathways, it can also generate a new awareness of the task and possibilities of the discipline. New testimonials, or uniquely accented human experiential utterances, have emerged in theological discourse in the past decades, greatly increasing our vision of the expansiveness of theology. The tools for integration into systematic or discursive development are still, however, lacking. (...) This article suggests that an extension of the innovative methodology of Thomas Aquinas, beginning and ending with ‘what seems’ to be the case, putting testimony into discursive forms, and testing for a fittingness with the mysterious and excessive mystery of the divine reality, offers a promising path for discerning common and trustworthy theological language. (shrink)

Archer recognizes that sexual selection theory is sensitive to the effects of ecologies on sex differences, yet he does not explain the impact of such variation. For example, to what degree are there sex differences in aggression in polygynous and monogamous societies? I demonstrate how differences in mating perceptions affect the traditional dichotomy that males compete for and females choose mates.

George P. Fletcher, Rethinking Criminal Law Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1978, xviii + 898 pp.

Public health emergencies have occurred throughout history, encompassing such events as plagues and famines arising from natural causes, disease pandemics interrelated with wars, and industrial accidents such as the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, among others. Law and legal tools have played an important role in addressing such emergencies. Three prime U.S. examples are Congressional authorization of quarantine as early as 1796, legally mandated smallpox vaccination upheld in a landmark 1905 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, and the President's 2003 executive order adding SARS (...) to the federal government's list of “quarantinable communicable diseases.”The public health emergencies of the present — both actual and potential — pose equally serious threats but do so in the context of greatly magnified expectations that stem directly from the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the immediately following anthrax attacks. (shrink)

Public health emergencies have occurred throughout history, encompassing such events as plagues and famines arising from natural causes, disease pandemics interrelated with wars, and industrial accidents such as the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, among others. Law and legal tools have played an important role in addressing such emergencies. Three prime U.S. examples are Congressional authorization of quarantine as early as 1796, legally mandated smallpox vaccination upheld in a landmark 1905 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, and the President's 2003 executive order adding SARS (...) to the federal government's list of “quarantinable communicable diseases.”The public health emergencies of the present — both actual and potential — pose equally serious threats but do so in the context of greatly magnified expectations that stem directly from the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the immediately following anthrax attacks. (shrink)

Securing equitable antibiotic access as an essential component for health system resilience and pandemic preparedness requires a systems perspective. This article discusses key components that need to be coordinated and paired with adequate financing and resources to ensure antibiotic effectiveness as a global public good, which should be central while discussing a new global agreement.