Book reviewed in this article: Principles of Biomedical Ethics. By Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress.

Suppose a meeting had been called among chief medical officers, chief administrative officers, and other leaders from a range of health-related institutions in this country. The question posed for this meeting was simple but unusual: Arethestructuresofourorganizations,systems,andinstitutionsethical? Though it was a question reminiscent for a few of the focus some time before on whether the conduct of individuals in their organization was ethical, this question seemed more demanding. Is it reasonable to consider structures or arrangements as ethical or not; or in (...) other words, is ethics an applicable attribute of organizations? And if it is reasonable to speak of an ethics of organizations, by what method might one discern any kind of an answer? And what of the informal connections that link different organizations … how can they be evaluated? (shrink)

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, such as semaglutide, and dual GLP-1 and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) receptor agonists, such as tirzepatide, have been found to be effective for treating obesity and diabetes, significantly reducing weight and the risk or predicted risk of adverse cardiovascular events. There is a global shortage of these medications that could last several years and raises questions about how limited supplies should be allocated. We propose a fair-allocation framework that enables evaluation of the ethics of current (...) practices and could guide governments, professional societies, and physicians in allocation decisions. (shrink)

To guide treatment decisions for incompetent patients who have no advance directives, health care institutions should look to the preferences of their own communities of patients. That is the best way to ensure that incompetent patients' wishes will be followed.

The traditional Western understanding of life and death as a strict dichotomy is challenged by a more descriptively accurate model of life's progressive cessation. Dying can be defined by a bounded zone of residual states of life that fits better with moral intuition and more sensitively guides action toward the dying.

This volume gathers an international team of renowned scholars in the fields of ancient greek philosophy, in order to explore the continuous but changing dialogue between Platonism and Aristotelianism from the early imperial age to the end of Antiquity. While most chapters concern Platonists (Philo, Plutarch, Plotinus, Syrianus, Proclus, Damascius, Philoponus), and their uses or criticism of Aristotle's doctrines, several chapters are also devoted to Peripatetic authors (Boethius and mostly Alexander of Aphrodisias) and their attitudes towards Plato's positions. Each of (...) the eleven chapters draws the attention to specific polemical contexts and philosophical problems which made Platonists and Aristotelians unite against common adversaries like the Stoics, or split up, not only in the fields of metaphysics and cosmology, but also in epistemology, psychology and ethics. (shrink)

It has become increasingly difficult for individuals to exercise meaningful control over the personal data they disclose to companies or to understand and track the ways in which that data is exchanged and used. These developments have led to an emerging consensus that existing privacy and data protection laws offer individuals insufficient protections against harms stemming from current data practices. However, an effective and ethically justified way forward remains elusive. To inform policy in this area, we propose the Ethical Data (...) Practices framework. The framework outlines six principles relevant to the collection and use of personal data—minimizing harm, fairly distributing benefits and burdens, respecting autonomy, transparency, accountability, and inclusion—and translates these principles into action-guiding practical imperatives for companies that process personal data. In addition to informing policy, the practical imperatives can be voluntarily adopted by companies to promote ethical data practices. (shrink)

Just hearing the names of Brentano and Plato put together is enough to highlight the queerness of a matching which finds almost no evidence in critical literature. The study of the texts in which Brentano explicitly deals with Plato, in particular in his lectures on the history of Greek philosophy, does not change much of the negative impression that emerges from a general overview: the place of Plato in the history of philosophy depends, for Brentano, on Aristotle or, better, on (...) the accomplishment of Greek philosophy occurs in Aristotle’s work. We shall turn our attention towards the of certain relevant problems in order to open up, if possible, a less negative prospect for the relationship of Brentano to Plato: not so much directly by examining Platonic philosophy from a Brentanian point of view as by considering the concrete solution that Brentano provides to some Aristotelian questions. To put it differently, we shall take into account not so much what Brentano says of Plato, as what Brentano does with Aristotle, by tracking the Platonizing traces that can be found in the Brentanian commentary to Aristotle’s categories, the philosophical consequences of which seem to be reflected in Brentano’s overall philosophical project. (shrink)

Dans l’Allemagne du xix e siècle, l’édition intégrale du Corpus aristotelicum de l’Académie des sciences de Berlin constitue la condition ayant rendu historiquement possible le « retours à Aristote », dont l’une des figures majeures est sans doute A. F. Trendelenburg. Suivant comme fil conducteur les rapports grammaticaux inhérents aux différentes parties de la proposition, Trendelenburg, le premier, s’engage à démontrer l’ordre sous-jacent au nombre des catégories, laissé pourtant indéterminé par Aristote. Le but est, pour l’essentiel, de découvrir le point (...) de contact originaire entre la pensée, le langage et l’être, en opposition frontale aux résultats de l’idéalisme allemand. C’est donc le lien entre logique et métaphysique qui est au centre de l’exégèse philosophique que Trendelenburg livre aux pages de l’ Aristoteles Kategorienlehre en 1846, sur laquelle nous portons notre attention afin de rétablir les lignes directrices d’un projet dont l’originalité a souvent été confinée aux hypothèses prétendument improductives d’une grammaire spéculative ou délaissée en faveur d’autres épigones du lignage aristotélicien – de Brentano à Heidegger. (shrink)

Pourquoi recourir à la pensée de Dietrich Bonhoeffer pour formuler une contribution philosophique au problème de la tolérance? Et, de surcroît, en dialogue avec la phénoménologie? Homme de pensée et d’action, Bonhoeffer n’est, à proprement parler, ni un phénoménologue ni un penseur de la tolérance. Il est, toutefois, légitime d’envisager sa lutte contre le totalitarisme, tant sur le plan théologique que politique, comme un cas limite susceptible de relever du questionnement sur la nature et la portée de la tolérance elle-même. (...) Et cela en raison du paradoxe auquel Bonhoeffer s’expose dans la tentative de putsch visant l’élimination du Führer à laquelle il participe : la violation non seulement de la loi, mais d’un commandement divin – « tu ne tueras pas » – que Bonhoeffer justifie au nom de sa foi en Dieu. Notre hypothèse de lecture nous conduit dès lors à consacrer une attention particulière à sa thèse d’habilitation, Akt und Sein, où Bonhoeffer formule une critique originale de la phénoménologie notamment heideggérienne, inspirée par la theologia crucis de tradition luthérienne : renonçant à toute tentative d’autodétermination, l’homme, pour Bonhoeffer, ne peut se comprendre que par une ouverture radicale à la transcendance qui coïncide, en dernière instance, avec la dimension authentiquement personnelle de l’homme lui-même ainsi que de la relation entre l’homme et Dieu. (shrink)

La nozione di ‘fenomenotecnica’, introdotta da Gaston Bachelard negli anni 30, gode di forte interesse tra gli storici delle scienze, che la usano per insistere sulla mediazione tecnico-sociale dei fatti scientifici. In filosofia, sul fondo dell’attuale trionfale ritorno a un nuovo realismo epistemologico, l’idea di fenomenotecnica è stata relegata tra i relitti del ‘costruttivismo’. L’articolo difende una lettura diversa della ‘fenomenotecnica’: al di là del ruolo che Bachelard gli attribuiva nella costruzione dei fatti scientifici, il concetto permette di ripensare la (...) connessione intrinseca tra esperienza e tecnicità. I fenomeni non sono semplicemente dati; bisogna renderli visibili, tramite specifiche tecniche dell’apparire. Una tale premessa porta non solo a ripensare il ruolo che si attribuisce alla dimensione tecnica nell’estetica, ma anche alla ‘aisthesis’ in seno alle operazioni tecniche. (shrink)

In the most recent debate of phenomenological as well as analytical provenance, Husserl’s reflection, although pioneer regarding ethics, seems to suffer of a general depreciation enrooted in his supposed excess rationalism. The husserlian ethics would remain subjected to the dominance of a logico-objectifying reason, which appears to be the fundamental dimension of intentionality. The wide range of life-experiences would then be crushed by the hegemony of objectifying acts. Are we really sure? Our contribution will rather consist in raising the originality (...) of Husserl’s method which lastly to reconcile two seemingly contradictory requirements: the autonomy of ethical and its dependence towards logical reason. We shall notice thus a progressive dissociatoon from Brentano’s teaching leading to an overall revision of intentionality. If anything such as rationalism exists in Husserl’s thinking, it can only be asserted on the condition of a radical criticism of the concept of “representation” – from where, as we shall see, emerges a newly articulated relationship between “object” and “value”. (shrink)

Dans la première partie de L'unique fondement possible d'une démonstration de l'existence de Dieu (1763), Kant propose un argument de type ontologique qu'il avait déjà formulé dans ses écrits de 1755. La présente contribution voudrait examiner continuité et changements dans les différentes formulations. Contrairement à ce que soutiennent d'autres chercheurs, j'entends montrer que l'argument de Kant se présente, dès le départ, comme une alternative à celui des auteurs de la tradition wolffienne. Cette innovation comporte certaines difficultés théoriques qui apparaissent clairement (...) dans le texte de 1763. Tout en confirmant la conviction que l'argument ontologique de la tradition wolffienne n'est pas démonstratif, Kant estime ne pas disposer d’un argument alternatif complet, mais seulement de son fondement. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that Pareyson’s notion of formativity is germane to the notion of self–transcendence recently put forward in the vast domain of the sciences of the self–organization of complex systems. Following Jean–Pierre Dupuy’s approach, we will not apply this notion to the analysis of Pareyson’s theory; we will, instead, show— by referring to thenumerous topoi where often surprisingly precise parallelisms, onvergences and semantic identities are to be found—that, though being largely independent in their genesis, the logics of (...) the two notions are already consistent with each–other. As a result, we will claim that Pareyson’s theory of the work of art is best understood as a study on the integration of different layers of organizational closures. (shrink)

Nous en parlons à peine et leur nom nous échappe. La philosophie les a toujours négligées ; même la biologie les considère comme une simple décoration de l'arbre de la vie. Et pourtant, les plantes donnent vie à la Terre : elles fabriquent l'atmosphère qui nous enveloppe, elles sont à l'origine du souffle qui nous anime. Les végétaux incarnent le lien le plus étroit et élémentaire que la vie puisse établir avec le monde. Sous le soleil et les nuages, en (...) se mêlant à l'eau et au vent, leur existence est une interminable contemplation cosmique. Ce livre part de leur point de vue - celui des feuilles, des racines et des fleurs - pour comprendre le monde non plus comme une simple collection d'objets, ou un espace universel contenant toute chose, mais bien comme l'atmosphère générale, le climat, un lieu de véritable mélange métaphysique. (shrink)

L’auteur de cet article propose une relecture inédite d’une vieille question machiavélienne, le rapport entre le modèle antique romain et les temps modernes corrompus, qu’il revisite à la lumière d’un troisième terme : le jugement de Machiavel sur la religion chrétienne. Emanuele Cutinelli Rendina développe ici l’hypothèse d’une césure dans la pensée de Machiavel, représentée par le début du deuxième livre des Discours sur la première Décade de Tite-Live. À partir des premiers chapitre du livre II, le modèle romain ne (...) semble plus être actualisable : inconciliable avec un présent trop corrompu, l’idéal va devenir un mythe. (shrink)