COLI – company owned life insurance – is often purchased by firms on employees in whom the firm has no demonstrable insurable interest. Though no immediate harm comes to individuals insured in this way, purchasing such policies raises moral questions. From a Kantian framework, questions arise about reciprocity and fairness, the deception of employees, the generation of mistrust, and the use of the employee’s life as a means to profit. No compensating social good is served by the sale of these (...) policies. (shrink)

Life insurance settlements, or life settlements, are life insurance policies owned by investor-beneficiaries on the lives of unrelated individuals. With life settlements, investors make substantial payments to the insured individuals upon purchasing such policies, pay any remaining premius, and collect the death benefits upon the demise of the insured individuals. Transactions involving life settlements seem poised to become a major source of profits for investment banks, comparable in dollar amount to subprime mortgages. With life settlements, the insured individuals suffer no (...) immediate harm, and the sale of a policy an individual owns is permissible under current law. Nevertheless, moral questions can be posed about the social values expressed by these practices, the effect of these practices on the virtue of charity, and the overall loss of social utility that will result from life settlements. We consider life settlements from utilitarian and libertarian perspectives, and then consider the effects of life settlements on social values and on individual character. On balance, we favor legislative changes in insurance and tax laws to discourage life settlements, and argue that certain forms of life settlements should be banned outright. (shrink)

We introduce the Profinite Hull functor of special groups, showing that it gives rise to a new local - global principle, the subform reflection property. We also indicate applications of this principle to the abstract algebraic theory of quadratic forms.

This paper undertakes a theoretical investigation of the 'learning' aspect of science as opposed to the 'knowledge' aspect. The practical background of the paper is in agricultural systems research – an area of science that can be characterised as 'systemic' because it is involved in the development of its own subject area, agriculture. And the practical purpose of the theoretical investigation is to contribute to a more adequate understanding of science in such areas, which can form a basis for developing (...) and evaluating systemic research methods, and for determining appropriate criteria of scientific quality. Two main perspectives on science as a learning process are explored: research as the learning process of a cognitive system, and science as a social, communicational system. A simple model of a cognitive system is suggested, which integrates both semiotic and cybernetic aspects, as well as a model of self-reflective learning in research, which entails moving from an inside 'actor' stance to an outside 'observer' stance, and back. This leads to a view of scientific knowledge as inherently contextual and to the suggestion of reflexive objectivity and relevance as two related key criteria of good science. (shrink)

Questions have been raised on what role the knowledge provided by sustainability science actually plays in the transition to sustainability and what role it may play in the future. In this paper we investigate different approaches to sustainability transformation of food systems by analyzing the rationale behind transformative acts-the ground that the direct agents of change act upon- and how the type of rationale is connected to the role of research and how the agents of change are involved. To do (...) this we employ Max Weber’s distinction between instrumental rationality and value-rationality in social action. In particular, we compare two different approaches to the role of research in sustainability transformation: (1) Performance-based approaches that measure performance and set up sustainability indicator targets and benchmarks to motivate the agents in the food system to change; (2) Values-based approaches that aim at communicating and mediating sustainability values to enable coordinated and cooperative action to transform the food system. We identify their respective strengths and weaknesses based on a cross-case analysis of four cases, and propose that the two approaches, like Weber’s two types of rationality, are complementary-because they are based on complementary observer stances—and that an optimal in-between approach therefore cannot be found. However, there are options for reflexive learning by observing one perspective-and its possible blind spots-from the vantage point of the other, so we suggest that new strategies for sustainability transformation can be found based on reflexive rationality as a third and distinct type of rationality. (shrink)

This book is the first systematic integrated analysis of ethical issues in health care which combines an introduction to moral theory, a set of readings in health care ethics, and an extensive set of case studies.

Les démocraties s’articulent autour de deux pôles qui ne se réduisent pas l’un à l’autre, mais qui doivent communiquer constamment : la société civile et l’État. Or, l’équilibre à rechercher entre ces deux éléments est mis à mal par la consolidation de l’État administratif qui tend à autonomiser son action par rapport au reste de la société ; la société civile y est d’ordinaire exclue des prises de décisions. Cette exclusion peut toutefois être considérée positivement ou négativement. Comme il sera (...) discuté à partir des philosophies de John Dryzek et d’Iris Marion Young, on devrait tenter de penser à la fois l’inclusion de la société civile dans certaines prises de décisions étatiques et son indépendance pour favoriser sa dimension critique envers l’État. De là, l’État administratif peut être considéré simultanément comme une opportunité de démocratisation et comme une évolution de l’État à surveiller et à critiquer. (shrink)

The practice-dependence approach offers a new way of theorizing about human rights and distributive justice that promises to settle some of the ongoing disputes about their justification, content, and scope. In sharp contrast with naturalistic theories, which conceive of human rights as an abstract moral ideal, practice-dependence theories regard human rights as a public political doctrine constructed to play a specific regulatory role in contemporary world politics. They maintain accordingly that the content of those rights should be determined in light (...) of the role played by human rights in the contemporary practice of international politics. Similarly, those theories do not conceive of distributive justice simply as a moral virtue proper to all human beings, but rather as a political value arising as necessary to the regulation of certain social and political practices. In this view, the content and scope of justice should depend on an interpretation of the structure and point of the practices in question. The articles gathered in this volume propose a comprehensive introduction to the practice-dependence approach by some of its major supporters, as well as a critical discussion of its theoretical promises. (shrink)

Includes Spanish version of Vita Secundi (Life of Secundus of Athens) by Vincent of Beauvais, and the Spanish version (Castellana) by Walter Burley (Gualterus Burlaeus) with the Latin version in his "Tractatus de vita et moribus philosophorum et de quibusdam dictis eorum" from his ms. in the "Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid Vit. 18-7 (Olim T. 9), fols. 50r-51v"--See page 33.

El adiós a las escuelas -- El capitalismo, motor de la modernidad tardía.

Contiene tres trabajos sobre Arturo Ardao: sobre la noción de sujeto (Yamandú Acosta); sobre la interpretación de Andrés Bello (Arturo A. Roig); y sobre su libro Filosofía de lengua española (ver HLAS 36:5047). Mencionamos algunas de las otras contribuciones: el tema de la historia de la filosofía latinoamericana (Horacio Cerutti Guldberg); el batllismo (Manuel A. Claps); el tema de Calibán (Roberto Fernández Retamar); el pensamiento de Pedro Figari (Juan Fló); la universidad latinoamericana en el siglo XVIII (Gregorio Weinberg); el pensamiento (...) socialista en el Uruguay (Carlos Zubillaga). Es de lamentar que no se agregara al volumen una bibliografía de Ardao"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58. (shrink)