In this issue of The Journal of Clinical Ethics, we offer a variety of perspectives on the moral and medical responsibilities of professionals with regard to a woman’s choice of where she will birth her baby. The articles in this special issue focus on place of birth, but they have larger resonance for clinicians whose decisions about providing the best possible care require them to sort through evidence, consider their own possible biases and the limitations of their training, and balance (...) the wishes of their patients with the demands of colleagues, hospitals, and insurers. The articles published in this special issue of The Journal of Clinical Ethics will help those who wrestle with such dilemmas in everyday clinical decision making. (shrink)

BackgroundPreprint usage is growing rapidly in the life sciences; however, questions remain on the relative quality of preprints when compared to published articles. An objective dimension of quality that is readily measurable is completeness of reporting, as transparency can improve the reader’s ability to independently interpret data and reproduce findings.MethodsIn this observational study, we initially compared independent samples of articles published in bioRxiv and in PubMed-indexed journals in 2016 using a quality of reporting questionnaire. After that, we performed paired comparisons (...) between preprints from bioRxiv to their own peer-reviewed versions in journals.ResultsPeer-reviewed articles had, on average, higher quality of reporting than preprints, although the difference was small, with absolute differences of 5.0% [95% CI 1.4, 8.6] and 4.7% [95% CI 2.4, 7.0] of reported items in the independent samples and paired sample comparison, respectively. There were larger differences favoring peer-reviewed articles in subjective ratings of how clearly titles and abstracts presented the main findings and how easy it was to locate relevant reporting information. Changes in reporting from preprints to peer-reviewed versions did not correlate with the impact factor of the publication venue or with the time lag from bioRxiv to journal publication.ConclusionsOur results suggest that, on average, publication in a peer-reviewed journal is associated with improvement in quality of reporting. They also show that quality of reporting in preprints in the life sciences is within a similar range as that of peer-reviewed articles, albeit slightly lower on average, supporting the idea that preprints should be considered valid scientific contributions. (shrink)

Objectives To evaluate whether the requirement of “minimal risk and burden” for paediatric research without direct benefit to the subjects compromises the ability to obtain data necessary for improving paediatric care. To provide evidence-based reflections on the EU recommendation that allows for a higher level of risk. Design and setting Systematic analysis of the approval/rejection decisions made by the Dutch Central Committee on Research involving Human Subjects (CCMO). Review methods The analysis included 165 proposals for paediatric research without direct benefit (...) that were reviewed by the CCMO between January, 2000, and July, 2007. A separate, in-depth analysis of all drug studies included 18 early phase drug studies and nine other drug studies without direct benefit. Results 11 out of 165 studies were definitively rejected because the CCMO did not regard the risk and/or burden to be minimal. In three of these 11 cases (including two early phase drug studies) the requirement of minimal risk and burden was cited as the only reason for rejection. Four other early phase drug studies also involved risks and/or burdens that were not regarded to be minimal but were nevertheless approved. Conclusions The requirement of minimal risk and burden, aiming to protect research subjects, occasionally leads to rejection of protocols. Early phase drug studies relatively often do not comply with the requirement. Committees may find ways to approve important studies that formally should be rejected, but that is not a desirable solution. The regulatory framework should be revised to make such occasional exceptions to the requirement legitimate and transparent. (shrink)

Plato's Euthyrphro, Apology, andCrito portray Socrates' words and deeds during his trial for disbelieving in the Gods of Athens and corrupting the Athenian youth, and constitute a defense of the man Socrates and of his way of life, the philosophic life. The twelve essays in the volume, written by leading classical philosophers, investigate various aspects of these works of Plato, including the significance of Plato's characters, Socrates's revolutionary religious ideas, and the relationship between historical events and Plato's texts.

An attractive student edition of the Kritik. The text follows the Akademie edition but with an eye on both of the original editions of 1781 and 1787. The Preface, Deduction, etc. of the A edition are, of course, appended. There is some cause for complaint in that the A and B edition page numbers are included at the bottom of the page and not marginally, an oversight which will make reference inconvenient or inaccurate. A regular index and a valuable analytical (...) index of Kant's own definitions of key terms are included. In addition, the editors have added an appendix detailing the apparatus employed in arriving at this particular edition. Unfortunately the price of the hard-cover edition was not indicated, but the paper edition was given at 10.80 DM.—E. A. R. (shrink)

The five chapters in this volume were originally delivered in lecture form at the University of Genoa and have previously appeared in French, German, and English translations. An appendix, "What the Philosopher May Learn from the Study of Law," has also appeared before in English. The book is basically a digest, with some modifications, of Perelman's earlier work Justice et Raison. The chief modification involves a supposed shift away from positivism toward a greater emphasis on the cognitive status of primary (...) values. Through the mediation of his consideration of the nature of practical reason in the Traité de l'Argumentation, Perelman now wishes to argue that values are subject to dialectical justification. The analysis of justice, thus, need not be restricted to merely formal specifications such as the rule of justice or to such inherently nonuniversalizable and nonanalyzable principles as that of equity. Dialectical justification falls short of demonstration, but only someone still under the spell of Cartesianism would wish to maintain that rationality is adequately summarized in the model provided by mathematics and science. Jurisprudence, therefore deals with judgments that have cognitive and not arbitrary or merely historical value. So much for the scheme of Perelman's argument. What about its execution? It must be said that its substance is slight and the base of discussion extraordinarily narrow. Thus, Perelman says he wishes to avoid the Scylla of nominalism and the Charybdis of realism; but his own analysis winds up squarely in a conventionalism that is only minutely distinguishable from the nominalism he presumably attacks: e.g., "the idea of [practical] reason must not be linked to that of truth", "reason is but an attempt to convince the members of [the universal] audience--whom common sense would define as well-informed and reasonable men". The only defense offered by Perelman for the first statement is a flaunting of the bogey of dogmatism. The vicious circle in the second statement is barred from rising to the level of the fruitful Aristotelian paradox by a peremptory dismissal of natural law: "The theorists of natural law... have not convinced the majority of those philosophers of law who are endowed with critical minds." This kind of "you-don't-belong-to-the-club" argument makes the book practically worthless from a truly dialectical point of view. The only critical sparks generated are in Perelman's discussion of Rawls' theory of "justice as fair play." His points here are well taken. But, as this is the only saving grace in the book--the rest being merely a statement of Perelman's own doxa about justice--it would have been better to leave the whole interred in the journals where it had already been published.--E. A. R. (shrink)

We propose a new approach for tracing value change. Value change may lead to a mismatch between current value priorities in society and the values for which technologies were designed in the past, such as energy technologies based on fossil fuels, which were developed when sustainability was not considered a very important value. Better anticipating value change is essential to avoid a lack of social acceptance and moral acceptability of technologies. While value change can be studied historically and qualitatively, we (...) propose a more quantitative approach that uses large text corpora. It uses probabilistic topic models, which allow us to trace values that are latent. We demonstrate the approach for five types of value change in technology. Our approach is useful for testing hypotheses about value change, such as verifying whether value change has occurred and identifying patterns of value change. The approach can be used to trace value change for various technologies and text corpora, including scientific articles, newspaper articles, and policy documents. (shrink)

Chauchard has given a neurophysiological transcription of the evolutionary thought of Teilhard, which should give his critics, scientific, philosophical, and theological, reason to pause and reassess the place of his thought in all of these areas. Teilhard was basically a scientist, according to Chauchard. He attempts to show that scientific phenomenology, which allows its categories to be shaped by the dynamic in addition to the formal, mathematical structure of its subject matter, is just as legitimately a scientific method as what (...) has passed as such for so long. In particular, scientific phenomenology allows the neuro-physiologist to speak of subjectivity in an appropriately scientific way that cuts away the false dichotomy between the "subjective" and "objective," which invariably invites the reduction of either one to the other, or leaves them side by side in an incommunicable dualism.—E. A. R. (shrink)

A detailed, paragraph by paragraph, interpretation of the De Ente et Essentia. Bobik has supplied his own translation of the text. It is only incidental that his claim to this being the only full-scale commentary in English is negated by the new translation of the Cajetan Commentary ; but the undergraduate and the student who has not yet thoroughly studied the tradition is bound to find Bobik's Interpretation much more approachable than Cajetan's Commentary. Bobik concentrates heavily upon distinguishing and keeping (...) straight the logical and metaphysical themes in Thomas' work and is able to delineate, with more than usual success, Thomas' doctrine of first and second intentions and the always thorny problem of universals. Though his is definitely an interpretive rather than an historical and textual approach, Bobik explicitly rejects such aggiornamentizing as the existential interpretation of Thomas, specifically the reading of esse as "act of existing" rather than as the less theoretically loaded "being." This perhaps accounts for his failure to mention one possible interpretation of the prima via which does not regard the demonstration as limited to a cause of physical motion—as Bobik seems to think. Bobik's efforts may well provoke rather than be provocative for many neo-scholastically oriented philosophers, but there is a good deal of light thrown on Thomas' metaphysics that would be lost if this attitude held sway.—E. A. R. (shrink)

It is a pleasure to see that there is an art to editing college, readings texts. Individual editors handle five more or less isolable schools of thought, and in the same stroke achieve a modest effort in the history of ethical thought. I. The "Classical" authors include Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas ; II. "Dialectical" thinkers include Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Marx, Engels ; III. "American Naturalistic Thought" contains selections from James, Dewey, Edel, Hook, Romanell, Dennes ; IV. "Analytic" selections are from Moore, (...) Schlick, Ayer, Stevenson, Toulmin, Nowell-Smith ; V. "Existentialist" material is from Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Marcel, Camus, Teilhard de Chardin. The introductions to each section are well-done and genuinely informative, and include a glossary of key terms occurring throughout each particular section. Analytically designed questions are placed after each selection and each section contains a selected but annotated bibliography.—E. A. R. (shrink)

Fourteen essays ranging over issues in political philosophy, philosophy of language, theory of reference, aesthetics, philosophy of history, philosophical psychology, metaethics, "Foundations of Knowledge", "Wittgenstein and Austin". The final essay, "The Possibility of a Dialogue," by I. Mézáros, is a rather pessimistic post mortem on the "Cahiers de Royaumont", the proceedings of a 1959 conference on analytical philosophy held between the men of Oxford and some continental philosophers. From the perspective of continental philosophy, Mézáros is denying the possibility of a (...) meaningful dialogue until analytical philosophers extensively broaden their horizons and methods. A reading of the essays in this volume painfully bears out Mézáros judgment, though the issue of whether or how analytical philosophers ought to mend their ways is not as easily decided as Mézáros seems to indicate.—E. A. R. (shrink)

Along with the translation of Cajetan's text the translators have provided their own translation of the De Ente et Essentia. In addition, an introduction, without which a good deal of what Cajetan is up to would be missed, is supplied. In it the translators explain the context of the Commentary as Cajetan's defense of Thomas' and Cajetan's own metaphysics against Scotism, particularly that of Anthony of Trombetta. The introduction centers particularly on Cajetan's understanding—and in some cases, the translators claim, misunderstanding—of (...) the difficult notion of esse. The scholarly apparatus is impeccable and an extensive bibliography is provided; in all, a welcome addition to a valuable series of Mediaeval Philosophical Texts in Translation.—E. A. R. (shrink)

This book, number 14 in the Studia series published by Les Facultés S. J. de Montréal, is essentially a critical study of the different opinions of recent neo-scholastic authors on the theoretical basis and possibility of the deontological argument for the existence of God. The author divides the theories into two basic types, "Extrinsécisme" and "Intrinsécisme," with various subdivisions within these two main classifications. The book is valuable for its summaries and criticisms, and especially for its exhaustive bibliography. A valuable (...) analytic table of contents and an index of proper names have been appended.—E. A. R. (shrink)

The five chapters in this volume were originally delivered in lecture form at the University of Genoa and have previously appeared in French, German, and English translations. An appendix, "What the Philosopher May Learn from the Study of Law," has also appeared before in English. The book is basically a digest, with some modifications, of Perelman's earlier work Justice et Raison. The chief modification involves a supposed shift away from positivism toward a greater emphasis on the cognitive status of primary (...) values. Through the mediation of his consideration of the nature of practical reason in the Traité de l'Argumentation, Perelman now wishes to argue that values are subject to dialectical justification. The analysis of justice, thus, need not be restricted to merely formal specifications such as the rule of justice or to such inherently nonuniversalizable and nonanalyzable principles as that of equity. Dialectical justification falls short of demonstration, but only someone still under the spell of Cartesianism would wish to maintain that rationality is adequately summarized in the model provided by mathematics and science. Jurisprudence, therefore deals with judgments that have cognitive and not arbitrary or merely historical value. So much for the scheme of Perelman's argument. What about its execution? It must be said that its substance is slight and the base of discussion extraordinarily narrow. Thus, Perelman says he wishes to avoid the Scylla of nominalism and the Charybdis of realism; but his own analysis winds up squarely in a conventionalism that is only minutely distinguishable from the nominalism he presumably attacks: e.g., "the idea of [practical] reason must not be linked to that of truth", "reason is but an attempt to convince the members of [the universal] audience--whom common sense would define as well-informed and reasonable men". The only defense offered by Perelman for the first statement is a flaunting of the bogey of dogmatism. The vicious circle in the second statement is barred from rising to the level of the fruitful Aristotelian paradox by a peremptory dismissal of natural law: "The theorists of natural law... have not convinced the majority of those philosophers of law who are endowed with critical minds." This kind of "you-don't-belong-to-the-club" argument makes the book practically worthless from a truly dialectical point of view. The only critical sparks generated are in Perelman's discussion of Rawls' theory of "justice as fair play." His points here are well taken. But, as this is the only saving grace in the book--the rest being merely a statement of Perelman's own doxa about justice--it would have been better to leave the whole interred in the journals where it had already been published.--E. A. R. (shrink)

There are sound scholarly reasons for regarding anything published about or written by Teilhard de Chardin as "hot copy," but in the case of the present volume of letters it appears to be cult interests that are being exploited rather than scholarly interests that are being served. In the first place this translation includes only the second half of the French original, Lettres d'Hastings et de Paris. The French text included all of Teilhard's letters to his parents from 1908 through (...) his induction into the French Army in 1914, not simply the letters between 1912-after Teilhard returned to Paris from his scholasticate at Ore Place to resume his studies in biology and paleontology—and 1914. The publisher has inexcusably failed to note this fact in the proper place, viz., in de Lubac's introduction which was written for all of the letters, not simply for those from 1912 on. In the second place, it is simply not true to say, as the dust cover does, that these letters "provide another and indispensible key to the genesis of his [Teilhard's] thought." These letters bear witness to Teilhard's filial piety and provide, at best, obscure and oblique references to his intellectual growth. The letters are not valueless, but this English edition has been handled irresponsibly from the point of view of amount of material included, emphasis indicated, and price asked.—E. A. R. (shrink)

This is a useful edition of Augustine's classic, De Libero Arbitro, which stood at the beginning and guided so much of the subsequent medieval scholastic thought on the problems of evil, free will, and God's foreknowledge and contingency. Hackstaff's introduction performs the task of filling in the historical background to Augustine's thought quite commendably.—E. A. R.

This is No. 16 in the valuable series, Mediaeval Philosophical Texts in Translation. The importance of the question of the Eternity of the World in Mediaeval philosophy cannot be taken lightly as in many respects it served as the watershed dividing basically divergent metaphysical commitments. In this volume are included Thomas' short treatise, De Aeternitate Mundi-translated for the first time—Siger's Questions on the Eternity of the World, and selections from Bonaventure taken chiefly from the Collationes in Hexaemeron. In the section (...) on Thomas are also included chapters 31-38 from Book II of the Summa Contra Gentiles, articles 1-2 from the Summa Theologiae I, Q. 46, article 17 from De Potentia Dei, Q. 3, and chapters 98-99 from the Compendium of Theology I. Bibliographies are appended to the selections from Thomas and Siger.—E. A. R. (shrink)

In what is at the very least a tour de force, one of the most important contemporary Italian philosophers, Michele Sciacca, has given a critical exposition of literally hundreds of philosophical writers who share in common the tradition of Western philosophy from Kant and Hegel back through Descartes, on the one hand, and back through Augustine, Aristotle, and Plato, on the other. Treatment ranges from a paragraph or two to nineteen pages in the case of Kierkegaard. For those not sharing (...) Sciacca's preference for an integral Christian philosophy which can successfully incorporate all the positive values of humanism, his "criticisms" will frequently seem polemical and unsupported by the exposition he has provided. This is particularly the case in his treatment of scientifically oriented, analytical and linguistic philosophy which he discusses in a chapter with the somewhat unflattering title, "'Physicalism' and the New 'Scientific' Barbarity." But the book is obviously intended more as an act of philosophical reflection than as a history of contemporary philosophy, and is, in this respect, to be assessed more by the criterion of philosophical soundness used to judge, e.g., Aristotle's handling of his predecessors, and Hegel's reading of the history of philosophy, than by considerations of historical scholarship. And, as philosophy, Sciacca's Christian Spiritualism is imposing.—E. A. R. (shrink)

This book of readings would make a superb ancillary text for an advanced or even graduate course in "existential phenomenology." Twelve of the twenty-two selections have been translated for the first time into English. This includes Sartre's defense of the major theses of Being and Nothingness before the Société française de philosophie and Ric£ur's similar defense of La Philosophie de la Volonté, I before the same body. As with Merleau-Ponty's similar defense, "The Primacy of Perception," also included in this volume, (...) the discussion which followed these defenses is presented. Integral texts in the form of articles rather than extracts from books are presented in most cases, including the first appearance of an essay by Marcel entitled "Desire and Hope." Where this is not done, as is partly the case for Strasser and wholly the case for Scheler, Dufrenne, Wild, and Ingarden, lengthy and context-faithful excerpts are given. There are four sections in the book: I. Existence in the Modalities of Consciousness, II. Existence as Embodied, III. Existence and Value, and IV. Existence and the Human Sciences. Each of these sections is skillfully laid out and effectively introduced. In addition to the philosophers mentioned, work by Buytendijk, May, Schutz, Van Kaam, Berger, Bollnow, Minkowski, Straus, and de Waelhens is included. Husserl is missing, as is Heidegger, but these gaps can be supplemented easily enough.—E. A. R. (shrink)

Twenty-nine philosophers from Plato to William Luijpen are represented by selections varying from three to twenty-two pages in length. The selections and their proportions are simply too idiosyncratic. Why should Stephen Strasser get twenty-two pages while Plato, Aquinas, Descartes, and Hume manage only twenty-nine total pages among the four of them? Most of the classical philosophers are represented by mere snippets; Kant is high man with fifteen pages of text—and even these are broken up into seven sections. The issue is (...) not simply number of pages: after all, Leibniz' Monadology would have fit in less space than that accorded to John Peters. This is not to denigrate Peters, who was an exceptionally good philosopher; but the beginning student should be exposed to Leibniz, Hegel, and Marx before he is exposed to Peters. Or he should at least be exposed to Smart, Feigl, or some other contemporary naturalistic viewpoint along with Peters, Teilhard de Chardin, and Merleau-Ponty. How, for example, can one begin to appreciate the task Merleau-Ponty has set for himself in philosophical psychology unless one has become familiar with the behavioristic and reductionistic positions Merleau-Ponty is defining himself over and against? The bibliographies in the first part of the book are inadequate.—E. A. R. (shrink)

This is the first of six volumes, the last of which is scheduled for publication in late 1970. Altogether they will comprise "a comprehensive survey of central theological topics conducted by a group of writers in basic sympathy with each other, whose theological views have emerged from a serious and disciplined study of the relevant sources and from an awareness of the problems posed by life and thought in the modern world." The Encyclopedia is being published simultaneously in English, French, (...) German, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish editions and it has been billed as an international project. In actual fact, a German, and particularly, Rahnerian point of view overwhelmingly predominates in this first volume. This may be all to the good but the statistics are nonetheless revealing. Each of the 120 articles and parts of articles is signed, by one or more of a total of ninety different authors. But out of these ninety, fourteen contributors,, account for approximately 42 per cent of the writing. Rahner himself has authored eight articles or parts of articles and ninety-eight columns; i.e., approximately 12 per cent of the total space. In short, this first volume certainly reflects what Karl Rahner is thinking. Whether that is what Catholic theology as a whole is or ought to be thinking is, of course, another question altogether. The more significant articles include those on "Angel" ; "Apocrypha" ; "Apologetics" ; "Baptism" ; "Bible" and "Biblical Exegesis" ; "Bishop" ; "Charity" ; "Christianity" ; "Church" ; "Church and State" ; "Church and World" ; "Church History" ; "Confirmation". Also deserving of mention are philosophical articles by Jörg Splett: "Agnosticism," "Analogy of Being," "Anthropomorphism," "Body," "Categories," "Concept," and "Consciousness." These articles are almost Leibnizian in their clarity and conciseness. They are written from a definite point of view, viz., transcendental Thomism strongly influenced by Heidegger; but they quite ably speak for themselves and their subject matter. The focus of most of the articles is on the current state of discussion in Catholic theology. The attempt to be up to date is reflected on almost every page, with numerous citations from the documents of Vatican II. No attempt has been made to render the articles definitive in terms of detail or scope. Thus the title Encyclopedia is somewhat misleading if it is meant to indicate that the present work is in the same genre as, say, the Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics or the Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique. Sacramentum Mundi is more like a contemporary Summa than a multi-dimensional and exhaustive encyclopedia.--E. A. R. (shrink)