The author argues that the minority homosexual section of our population--a larger minority than, for example, the ethnic minorities section--is more often than not excluded by the 'helping professions' from the right to be parents. The author appeals to the lack of scientific data supporting such exclusion and asks that homosexual parents and their children receive the same care from our institutions as other parents and children. Some instances of lack of care are cited. The paper was presented to the (...) 1983 annual conference of the London Medical Group, 'Human Rights in Medicine'. (shrink)

This essay inquires whether digitally transformed work can be virtuous and under what conditions. It eschews technological determinism in both utopian and dystopian versions, opting for the premise of free human agency. This work is distinctive in adopting an actor-centric and explicitly ethical analysis based on neo-Aristotelian, Catholic social teaching (CST), and MacIntyrean teachings on the virtues. Beginning with an analysis of digital disruption, it identifies the most salient human advantages vis-à-vis technology in digitally transformed work and provides philosophical anthropological (...) explanations for each. It also looks into external, organizational characteristics on both the macro and the micro levels of digitally transformed work, underscoring their ambivalence (efficiency and profits vs. exclusion and exploitation, flexibility and freedom vs. standardization and dependency) and the need to mitigate their polarizing effects for the sake of shared flourishing. The article presents standards for virtuous work according to neo-Aristotelian, CST, and MacIntyrean frames and applies them to digitally transformed work, giving rise to five fundamental principles. These basic guidelines indicate, on one hand, actions to be avoided and, on the other, actions to be pursued, together with their rationales. (shrink)

Using a religious studies methodology, this paper offers a detailed contextual mapping and a structural configuration of how collective violence is justified in Orthodox Christianity. The research design is explanatory, whereby the functional perspectives of doctrine, ethics and worship are all investigated and probed as phenomena of lived religion and orthopraxy. While predominantly initiatory and pedagogical, the paper also proposes a systematic platform for advanced research on this subject, by flagging contexts, themes and areas of inquiry that a researcher might (...) examine in order to untangle the inner workings of the justification of violence in the mind of the Orthodox. Given the ongoing Russian War on Ukraine, relevant samples are drawn from this case.Contribution: This paper outlines the Orthodox Christian justification of violence from the perspectives of doctrine, ethics and ritual and identifies pivotal areas of ambiguity between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. (shrink)

Este artigo visa apresentar uma taxonomia original dos argumentos mais difundidos contra o Princípio de Identidade dos Indiscerníveis ao longo da história da Filosofia, mas focando em versões defendidas no século XX e XXI; bem como uma taxonomia das respostas mais efetivas para esses argumentos usados no início do século XXI com uma breve avaliação sobre quais são as mais efetivas para cada argumento de ataque. O leitor também encontrará uma bibliografia atualizada sobre os debates envolvendo esses argumentos e contra-argumentos (...) nas seções correspondentes. Palavras-chave: identidade; indiscernibilidade; Princípio de Identidade dos Indiscerníveis; concebilidade. (shrink)

To incorporate medical ethics into clinical practice, it must first be understood and valued by health care professionals. The recognition of this principle led to an expanding and continuing educational effort by the ethics committee of the Vancouver General Hospital. This paper reviews this venture, including some pitfalls and failures, as well as successes. Although we began with consultants, it quickly became apparent that education in medical ethics must reach all health care professionals—and medical students as well. Our greatest successes (...) came in the formative years of a medical career (ie, in medical school and residency training programmes), but other efforts were not wasted, particularly among nurses and other health care professionals.Although this is a personal review of the experience in one institution, the lessons learnt in Vancouver are applicable to the further development of medical ethics in the UK. (shrink)

An analysis of the sources of Wittgenstein’s picture theory — which include not only his moment of insight on reading a magazine story about the use of models in a traffic court, but also the work of Russell, Hertz, and Boltzmann — provides the basis for an exploration of Wittgenstein’s articulation of a pictorial conception of representation in his wartime notebooks and its crystallization in the Tractatus. A discussion of Wittgenstein’s later criticism of the picture theory and his notion of (...) a “philosophical picture” illustrates the fundamental reversal in his transition to his later conception of philosophy: instead of taking literal pictures as a guide to the nature of meaning, he came to regard philosophical theories as akin to expressing an aesthetic preference for a certain style of representation. Wittgenstein’s treatment of factual language in the picture theory is related to his Tractarian approach to logical form, and the role of the show/say distinction in his early conception of logic and language. Particular attention is given to the difficulties generated by the idea that the conditions for the possibility of a given domain of discourse cannot be described in language, but must be shown by the form of words in question. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the ontology of the Tractatus is best understood as the consequence of Wittgenstein’s conception of logic and representation in general, and the postulate of the determinacy of sense in particular. Once it is recognized that Wittgenstein arrived at the idea of simple objects based on an abstract argument about the nature of complexes and analysis without providing any specific examples of such analyses, it is easy to see the need for caution in attributing any characteristics to (...) the objects over and above those demanded by Wittgenstein’s logicolinguistic commitments. Commentators have taken the Tractatus to be setting out a bewildering variety of highly specific views about the nature of objects. But the truth is that the book is so programmatic that its ontology can be elaborated in any number of ways. The final section of this chapter analyzes Wittgenstein’s treatment of the self in the Tractatus and his writing from the 1930s as a central example of the extreme tensions between the positivisistic doctrines stated in the Tractatus and the antipositivistic subtext it aims to convey or “show”: if the exoteric doctrine of the Tractatus is that there is no such thing as the subject of experience, the esoteric doctrine is that there is. This leads to a close reading of his proposal in the early 1930s that is considered a “subjectless” language as a way of clarifying the nature of experience, and his subsequent critique of the notions of the “metaphysical self” and the “visual world”. He had transmuted the difference between the first person and third person modes of speech into differences between two worlds and then had tried to put them back together again. (shrink)

How can we take history seriously as real and relevant? Despite the hazards of politically dangerous or misleading accounts of the past, we live our lives in a great network of cooperation with other actors; past, present, and future. We study and reflect on the past as a way of exercising a responsibility for shared action. In each of the chapters of Full History Smith poses a key question about history as a concern for conscious participants in the sharing of (...) action, starting with “What Is Historical Meaningfulness?” and ending with “How Can History Have an Aim?” Constructing new models of historical meaning while engaging critically with perspectives offered by Ranke, Dilthey, Rickert, Heidegger, Eliade, Sartre, Foucault, and Arendt, Smith develops a philosophical account of thinking about history that moves beyond postmodernist skepticism. Full History seeks to expand the cast of significant actors, establishing an inclusive version of the historical that recognizes large-scale cumulative actions but also encourages critical revision and expansion of any paradigm of shared action. (shrink)

Ancient allures the postmodern social subject trapped in the strangeness of time—the time after the end of history. For that time-beaten subject ancient is the unconscious of coherence, predictability, and certainty. Or perhaps that ancient is a glory fled. Whatsoever, ancient is generally sacralized—irrespective of the type of socialization that happened in the past—and journey to the ancient is often deemed to be a pilgrimage. When ideas of the ancient in their individuality and totality inter alia become the natural intellectual (...) resource for rebuilding postmodern societies, discriminative ingenuity becomes an essential faculty. Any uncritical reverence of the ancient becomes antithetical to modern social and political values, inviting the risk of reproducing inequities of the past. This article problematizes such uncritical dependence on the ancient using Ancient Indian Jurisprudence, which has been looked up on as a repository of moral and legal values, as a case in point. It meditates from the experiences and perspectives of an imaginary ‘teaching subject’ on the many pitfalls and possibilities of the ancient as it builds a framework of teaching and learning, and a representative scheme of evaluation for Ancient Indian Jurisprudence. (shrink)

In 1929, Wittgenstein made use of river imagery to convey the supposedly inexpressible thesis that all is in flux. However, he rejects this extreme thesis in manuscripts from the early 1930s and drafts of the Philosophical Investigations, affirming that one can step twice into the same river. His later discussion of the “stream of life” involves a return, in certain respects, to the river analogy, albeit in a very different key. Examining Wittgenstein’s changing use of this image casts light on (...) the continuities and discontinuities in the development of his philosophy. Wittgenstein’s argument that a private definition is impossible because ostension always depends on a “technique of use”, and his rejection of a positive theory of mind is clarified by examining some unusually explicit notes for a public lecture on private language. This material shows how the treatment of training and practice in the opening sections of the Philosophical Investigations is the basis for the subsequent discussion of both rule-following and privacy. (shrink)

Hume's Reception in Early America: Expanded Edition brings together the original American responses to one of Britain's greatest men of letters, David Hume. Now available as a single volume paperback, this new edition includes updated further readings suggestions and dozens of additional primary sources gathered together in a completely new concluding section. From complete pamphlets and booklets, to poems, reviews, and letters, to extracts from newspapers, religious magazines and literary and political journals, this book's contents come from a wide variety (...) of sources published in colonial America and the early United States between 1758 and 1850. As well as classics by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, it contains scores of unknown and hard-to-locate items, many of which have not been reprinted since their original publication. These responses are divided into four parts covering Hume's Essays; his Philosophical Writings; his History of England; and his Character and Death. Each of those parts has a separate introductory essay, and every selection is introduced by a short headnote that sets the piece in its historical context and provides bibliographical references. Packed with new insights into Hume and American thought and culture, Hume's Reception in Early America reveals the relevance and impact of Hume on American political, philosophical, historical, religious, and aesthetic debates. (shrink)

There is growing interest in the use of neurointerventions to reduce the risk that criminal offenders will reoffend. Commentators have raised several ethical concerns regarding this practice. One prominent concern is that, when imposed without the offender’s valid consent, neurointerventions might infringe offenders’ right to bodily integrity. While it is commonly held that we possess a moral right to bodily integrity, the extent to which this right would protect against such neurointerventions is as-yet unclear. In this paper, we will assess (...) whether, why, and how severely three forms of neurointervention might infringe the right to bodily integrity. We show that the severity of the infringement of the right to bodily integrity differs across different forms of neurointervention. Moreover, we argue that mental and behavioral effects of neurointerventions could in some cases be relevant to determining the severity of infringements of the right to bodily integrity. (shrink)

SummaryExtremism in the environment‐versus innateness controversy in the behavioural sciences and in human sociobiology is being examined. Genetic effects can be severely modified or overruled by environmental factors, but may, nevertheless, be important. Dawkins' view that we are survival machines programmed to subserve selfish genes seems untenable and is a root of racialism. It is also argued that morality is compatible with mixed genetic and environmental control of brains via existing biological machinery.

In response to a series of allegations of scientific misconduct in the 1980’s, a number of scientific societies, national agencies, and academic institutions, including Harvard Medical School, devised guidelines to increase awareness of optimal scientific practices and to attempt to prevent as many episodes of misconduct as possible. The chief argument for adopting guidelines is to promote good science. There is no evidence that well-crafted guidelines have had any detrimental effect on creativity since they focus on design of research studies, (...) documentation of research findings, assignment of credit through authorship, data management and supervision of trainees, not on the origin and evolution of ideas. This paper addresses a spectrum of causes of scientific misconduct or unacceptable scientific behavior and couples these with estimates of the potential for prevention if guidelines for scientific investigation are adopted. The conclusion is that clear and understandable guidelines should help to reduce the chance that flawed research will escape from our institutions. However, they cannot be relied upon alone to prevent all instances of scientific misconduct and should be regarded rather as one means of bolstering the integrity of the entire scientific enterprise. (shrink)

Talks collected from lectures given by Bennett with Gurdjieff's approval, to help people understand All and Everything: Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson. Bennett regarded Gurdjieff's All and Everything as a work of superhuman genius.

With the world grappling with continued spread of monkeypox internationally, vaccines play a crucial role in mitigating the harms from infection and preventing spread. However, countries with the greatest need - particularly historically endemic countries with the highest monkeypox case-fatality rates - are not able to acquire scarce vaccines. This is unjust, and requires rectification through equitable allocation of vaccines globally. We propose applying the Fair Priority Model for such allocation, which emphasizes three key principles: 1) preventing harm; 2) prioritizing (...) the disadvantaged; and 3) treating people with equal moral concern. Post-exposure prophylaxis (PEPV) has the most potential to mitigate harm, and so ensuring countries have sufficient supply for PEPV should be the first priority. And historically endemic countries, which face disadvantages that compound potential harms from monkeypox, should be the first recipients of such vaccines. Once sufficient supply is allocated for countries to apply PEPV, global allocation could move on to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), again prioritizing historically endemic countries first before distribution to the rest of the global community, based on projected number of cases and vulnerability to harm. (shrink)

The article focuses on the concept of the state in the works of the German sociologist M. Weber and his contemporary, the anarchist G. Landauer. Specifically, it is commonly thought that Weber has a unique interpretation of the state, its nature, and inalienable characteristics. This Weberian approach did not fit into any of the traditions that existed at that time in Germany (for example, represented by H. Kelsen, G. Jellinek, and O. von Gierke). However, the author of the article tries (...) to demonstrate that three main Weberian aspects of the state — 1) the monopoly on legitimate physical violence, 2) the relationship of domination, which is accompanied by a minimum desire to obey, and 3) the chance for the regular reproducibility of these relationships — are consonant with Landauer’s concept of the state. This discovered conceptual affinity allows one to look at Weber’s sociology from new angles, without being impacted by the personal beliefs of the German scientist, who very critically treated anarchism as a socio-political movement. In the final section of the paper, the author discusses the modern project of “anarchist sociology”, which also uses Weberian methodology. The paper argues that “anarchist sociology” might be a promising social science with ts unique vision of several key sociological topics, such as domination, power, or social inequality. (shrink)

Anscombe on thought, experience, sensation, and the ethics of virtue Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe is one of analytical philosophy's most prominent figures, the founder of consequentialism, and a leading mind in the field of virtue ethics. Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind: The collected Philosophical Papers of G.E.M. Anscombe, Volume 2, is part of a multivolume compilation of her life's work, providing insight into the mind of a groundbreaking 20th century philosopher. This volume's work explores memory, intentionality, causality and time, (...) delving into the language, actions, and logic of perception, sensation, and more. (shrink)

Organisms that share the capability of storing information about experiences in the past have an actively generated background resource on which they can compare and evaluate more recent experiences in order to quickly or even better react than in previous situations. This is an essential competence for all reaction and adaptation purposes of living organisms. Such memory/learning skills can be found from akaryotes up to unicellular eukaryotes, fungi, animals and plants, although until recently, it had been mentioned only as a (...) capability of higher animals. With the rise of epigenetics, the context-dependent marking of experiences at both the phenotype and the genotype level is an essential perspective to understand memory and learning in all organisms. Both memory and learning depend on a variety of successful communication processes within the whole organism. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between rhetoric and violence by running this pairing through a corresponding couplet: rhetoric and race. Arguing for a common substrate between these two pairs of terms—coloniality—this article proposes that rhetorics of "nonviolence" are better understood as rhetorics of anti-violence.