WHO IN TODAY'S WORLD OF PHILOSOPHY has not been made acutely aware of a singular and even felicitous phenomenon that has arisen in recent moral philosophy from within the natural law tradition? This is the phenomenon of three philosophers of whom it might be said that not only do they have "hearts that beat as one," but even their minds would appear to think as one as well: Germain Grisez, John Finnis, and Joseph Boyle. What could be more appropriate (...) for economy of reference in our critical study than if we simply refer to them henceforth as "the Grifinnboyle"? (shrink)

This article, published originally in French just after the 1989 release of Jean-Luc Marion’s book Reduction and Givenness, consists of a sustained critical study of the manner in which Marion advances from the basic principles of phenomenology. Henry outlines briefly three principles, “so much appearance, so much being,” “the principle of principles” of Ideas I, “to the things themselves!” before entering into a lengthy dialogue with Marion’s proposal of a fourth principle: “so much reduction, so much givenness.” Henry (...) submits each principle to critique, highlighting that they contain confusing premises. Henry is appreciative of Marion’s capacity to root the appearing of phenomena in givenness, but he ultimately finds problematic the gap between the call and response that is a fundamental structure of Marion’s fourth principle. Henry, in contrast, develops his own theme of pure givenness, expressed in the form of subjectivity he calls auto-affection, in the final pages of the article. (shrink)

Originally published by Ballinger, this book is a result of an Atlantic Council study of U.S. international relationships on energy. It examines the uncertainties of a political, strategic, economic, and technological nature that are involved in energy supply, as well as the unavoidable certainty of finite resources.

In recent years, online direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical companies have been created as an alternative method for individuals to get prescription medications. While these companies have noble aims to provide easier, more cost-effective access to medication, the fact that these companies both issue prescriptions as well as distribute and ship medications creates multiple ethical concerns. This paper aims to explore two in particular. First, this model creates conflicts of interest for the physicians hired by these companies to write prescriptions. Second, the lack (...) of direct contact from physicians may be harmful to prospective patients. After analysing these issues, this paper argues that there ought to be further consideration for regulation and oversight for these companies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 10.1 (2000) 103-108 [Access article in PDF] Letters "Small Sacrifices" in Stem Cell Research Madam: I agree with Professors McGee and Caplan (in their article "The Ethics and Politics of Small Sacrifices in Stem Cell Research," KIEJ, June 1999) that the question of the nature and status of the source of stem cells must be addressed. However, in their eagerness to convince us of (...) the smallness of the sacrifices, I think the authors use some unfortunate rhetorical devices and move much too quickly over some necessary distinctions.The rhetorical display is unfortunate if the article is intended to be a fair and rational development of an argument--e.g., those who hold a position in opposition to the authors do not argue they "inveigh." The section on the political area of the controversy seems particularly dismissive of other's positions.However, I will focus on just two areas where I think a more nuanced consideration would make the question of the moral legitimacy of the "small sacrifices" of embryos less obvious than the authors' rhetoric would suggest.First, they claim that opponents of such research assume some sort of "super status" for an embryo. The rights generally conceded to born human beings may not be as "weak" as they characterize. But even considering only the "negative right against unwarranted violence," I think the authors misdescribe the situation. Contrary to their assertion, I do not know when "adults and even children are... forced to give life... in the defense or at least interest of the community's highest ideals and most pressing interests" (p. 153). Could they be speaking of capital punishment, justified in the name of protecting the community? But then why mention children?It is true that not everyone can be guaranteed every means to preserving and enhancing life. But this limitation on positive rights is not a "forced giving." Adults may be compelled to risk life--e.g. in a draft for the sake of a war. But, again, the more or less justifiable imposition of a risk is not the same as selecting out one particular individual or class to be directly killed. Neither adults nor born children are compelled to be killed for the sake of organ "donation," even if a greater number might be saved. If one grants equivalent status to the embryo (as the authors seem to do here for the sake of argument), opponents do not have to claim a "super status" for embryos, just the ordinary human right not to be killed even for "compassionate" motives.A second area where I think the authors move too quickly is in their impoverished definition of the essential humanity of the early embryo as exhaustively represented by the physical structure of its DNA. The authors seem to recognize [End Page 103] that, ordinarily, there is more to personhood than sheer physical structure. For example, they mention memories and habits (p. 154). They could also speak of relationships, attitudes, and the like. Since an early embryo has no such components of personality as we experience it, the authors hold that its identity could only be contained in its DNA. Since this DNA is preserved, even spread far and wide, by the use of stem cells, it almost seems as if we are doing the early embryo a favor by breaking it up.However, just because the embryo does not have any conscious memories or other attributes of character or personality, that does not mean its identity is constituted only by its physical structure described statically. The early embryo is not just a bundle of discrete structures, and its DNA is not just an inert lump made up of certain smaller lumps. Both the embryo and its DNA are active. Thus the identity of even an early embryo includes both its current processes and the innate potential for further activity and development. Although lacking a conscious will, the early embryo is already in a sense an agent, already doing things--growing, changing, and heading toward something that... (shrink)

‘Apologetics’ is hardly a word to be used without apology in the present dispensation. And to speak of anything like a neglected avenue or opportunity in religious apologetics might almost seem as if one were speaking of an opportunity in just such an enterprise as no self-respecting philosopher would nowadays wish even to be associated with. For all of their avoidance of the term, however, the thing designated by the term is something with which not a few philosophers of recent (...) years have been not above dabbling in, albeit usually under other names and other labels. After all, religious language has now come to be recognized as not just a legitimate, but even a fashionable object of philosophic attention. And a concern with religious language has often brought with it a concern with religious attitudes, religious behaviour, religious argumentation — yes, even to the point of occasionally becoming a concern with the very religious realities themselves that religious language, religious attitudes, religious behaviour, and religious argument are presumably all about. True, religious realities in this sense are to today's garden of philosophy pretty much what the tree of knowledge once was to the garden of Eden. In fact, one even suspects that there could be a serpent about somewhere, for cases have been reported of an occasional philosopher Adam or philosopher Eve having yielded to temptation: a consideration of God-talk has been known to lead to cautious admissions that such talk might be cognitively meaningful; a consideration of God-experiences to the admission that such experiences under certain circumstances could be veridical; or, even more rarely, a consideration of proofs for God's existence to the gingerly admission that at least some of these proofs might just possibly be valid. Needless to say, though, such a yielding to temptation on the part of some few contemporary philosophers, while it may not have led to any manifest sewing together of fig-leaves, has certainly brought with it the danger, if not always the reality, of a supercilious expulsion from the glorious Eden of contemporary professional philosophy. (shrink)

The basic principles of scientific research from the great French physiologist whose contributions in the 19th century included the discovery of vasomotor nerves; nature of curare and other poisons in human body; more.

Under the guidance of Professor Veatch, Aristotle stands forth again as the philosopher who, above all, speaks simply and directly to the common sense of all ...

“Modern ethics,” so-called, has only in the most recent years come under some very sharp and telling, not to say even devastating, criticism. And what is it that one should understand by this term, “modern ethics”? Well, it is a term used largely by very recent critics to designate that whole tradition in ethics, in part utilitarian and in part Kantian in character, that has quite dominated the study of ethics, at least in Anglo-American philosophy, for upwards of three-quarters of (...) a century and more now. (shrink)

This book critiques contemporary trends in ethical theory, including the deontological tradition dating back to Kant, the teleological tradition of the utilitarians, the analytic movement, and the existentialist-phenomenologist movement. In refuting these trends, Veatch argues that moral and ethical distinctions cannot be rightly or adequately understood if they are regarded simply as matters of linguistic use but are grounded in the very being and nature of things.

This modern interpretation of Aristotelian ethics is ideally suited for undergraduate philosophy courses. It is also an engaging work for the expert and the beginner alike, offering a middle ground between existential and analytic ethics. Veatch argues for the existence of ethical knowledge, and he reasons that this knowledge is grounded in human nature. Yet he contends that the moral life is not merely one of following rules or recipes, nor is human well being something simple. Rather, the moral (...) life, which Veatch calls 'rational or intelligent living', is the life of practical wisdom where individual judgement of the particular and the contingent is paramount. Veatch's Rational Man offers a pluralistic understanding of human well being without lapsing into moral relativism. For those interested in morality and liberty, Rational Man offers fertile ground for developing an account of free and responsible persons. It has profoundly influenced the work of Den Uyl, Campbell, Machan, Miller, Mack, and many others. (shrink)

Taking metaphysics in its aristotelian sense to mean the investigation of being qua being, The author contends that its "matrix" (its place of origin, Field of operations, And continuing and ultimate point of reference) is everyday life, Characterized by its practical or existential inescapability. He then examines the charge that the truths of metaphysics illegitimately claim to be both necessary and factual, And argues in response that the objection rests upon a confusion of the character of one's intentional instrument (the (...) sentence or proposition) with that of the object intended. (staff). (shrink)

And at the other extreme and in a somewhat different sense, a realistic metaphysician in, say, the Aristotelian tradition would be equally insistent that he must be able to consider and talk about beings or things or entities just as such, about being qua being, in other words. And he too would mean to employ such terms in a way that would be all-inclusive and all-embracing. For he would say that there is literally nothing--unless it be just nothing--which could not (...) be said to be in some sense or other, or to be something or other. That is to say, outside being there is nothing. And this, as everyone knows, is simply the basis for Aristotle's celebrated denial that being can be a genus. (shrink)

When the very possibility of a Christian philosophy was raised in the celebrated Bréhier-Gilson debate over half-a-century ago, there could have been no mistaking the issue in the debate. On the one hand, it was asked how any philosopher could properly think of himself as a Christian philosopher, if his philosophy were to be regarded as warranted simply on his faith as a Christian. For that presumably meant that one’s philosophy was seriously compromised by its appeal to something clearly extra-philosophical—viz. (...) to divine revelation. On the other hand, and no less embarrassing, was the complementary question: How could one very well claim to be a Christian philosopher without seeming thereby seriously to compromise one’s Christian faith by falling back on philosophy as something necessary to support and justify the faith that was within one? Surely, if one’s Christianity should turn out to be something ever in need of reinforcement from philosophy, that could only mean that one’s faith as a Christian was really no genuine faith at all. (shrink)

This book is a consideration of the differences between Aristotelian and symbolic logic (and the metaphysical assumptions they come packaged with) and the consequences these have for how we view the world. What Veatch propose is to try to exhibit with respect to several of the key logical tools and devices – propositions, inductive and deductive arguments, scientific and historical explanations, definitions, etc. – how these several instruments are differently conceived, both as to their natures and their functions, in (...) each of these respective logics. (shrink)