Este trabajo presenta como objetivo revelar la influencia de los contextos socioeconómicos en las maneras de afrontamiento al cáncer como enfermedad. Se muestra un análisis sobre el cáncer como problema social y de salud; se analiza el papel de algunos entes sociales involucrados, el acceso de los enfermos a las terapias y de los productores de fármacos a las nuevas tecnologías. Se reflexiona acerca de la sobreevaluación de los fármacos que dificulta el acceso a novedosas y efectivas terapias; la supeditación (...) del saber tecnocientífico a los intereses del capital; la creciente contaminación ambiental como detonante al incremento de casos; y la escasez de tecnologías para la prevención y el saneamiento en países subdesarrollados. Finalmente se refiere el programa cubano de lucha contra el cáncer, su situación actual y proyecciones. This paper aimes at revealing the influence of the socioeconomic contexts on the way cancer is faced as a disease. An analysis about cancer as a social and health problem is presented; the role of some social organizations involved the sick's access to therepies and drug producers' access to new technologies. It is reflected on the over-asessment of drugs which makes access to new and effective therapies difficult; the subordination of the technoscientific knowledge to the interests of the capital; the growing environmental pollution as a trigger for cases increase; and the limited technological resources for prevention and cleanup in underdeveloped countries. Finally, it is made reference to the Cuban cancer fighting program, its current status and scope. (shrink)

Resumen Este artículo tiene por objetivo exponer cómo la contaduría como profesión puede ampliar su horizonte de reflexión sobre el concepto de bien común fundamentándose en los postulados principales de la Doctrina Social de la Iglesia dentro de su horizonte interpretativo, para lo cual se basa en una metodología cualitativa y un método dialógico fundamentado en la hermenéutica gadameriana. El principal aporte de este estudio es proponer que la contaduría, basada en el bien común desde la Doctrina Social de la (...) Iglesia, tiene que cambiar de paradigma, generar y comunicar información financiera y no financiera orientada hacia todo el hombre y a todos los hombres, y estar orientada hacia la eco-nomía y la eco-logía. Abstract This paper aims to expose how accounting as a profession can broaden its horizon of reflection on the concept of common good based on the main postulates of the Catholic Social Teaching within its interpretive horizon, for which it is based on a qualitative methodology and a dialogic method founded on Gadamerian hermeneutics. The main contribution of this study is to propose that accounting, based on the common good from the Catholic Social Teaching, must change the paradigm, generate and communicate financial and non-financial information oriented towards all man and all men, and be oriented towards eco-nomy and eco-logy. (shrink)

Esta investigación tiene como finalidad responder, desde la filosofía y literatura de Camus, la pregunta de si el hombre puede ser feliz sin Dios. Para llevar a cabo este trabajo, se utiliza un método hermenéutico, pues se hace un acercamiento dialógico y holístico a las obras del pensador argelino para descubrir su pensamiento respecto a Dios y a la felicidad humana. Los principales resultados de la investigación concluyen que el hombre puede ser feliz sin Dios en la medida en que, (...) en primer lugar, acepte el absurdo y viva su rebeldía, y, en segundo lugar, comprenda la felicidad como una vocación ontológica más allá de un estado. (shrink)

Some business schools have come under considerable criticism for what observers see as their complicit involvement in the corporate scandals and financial crises of the last 15 years. Much of the discussion about changes that schools might undertake has been focused on curriculum issues. However, revisiting the curriculum does not get at the root cause of the problem. Instead, it might create a new challenge: the risk of decoupling the discussion of the curriculum from broader issues of institutional purpose. In (...) this article, we argue that the most pressing need facing business schools is not to teach new courses to be responsive to social demands and stay relevant. Instead, it is to revisit their basic mission—the principles and beliefs on which they were founded—and then to re-evaluate their curriculum design choices in this light. We contrast the Spartan and Athenian educational paradigms as a way of shedding light on the nature of a coherent response. (shrink)

This critical appraisal of Juan Comesaña’s Being Rational and Being Right is divided into three sections: Section I describes the fundamental features of “Experientialism,” the theory of basic rationality developed and defended in the book; Section II briefly indicates how the chapters of the book unfold; and Section III describes and examines one problematic issue concerning how Experientialism interacts with the liberalism/conservatism debate in the theory of justification.

Heidegger's later philosophy has often been regarded as a lapse into unintelligible mysticism. While not ignoring its deep and difficult complexities, Julian Young's book explains in simple and straightforward language just what it is all about. It examines Heidegger's identification of loss of 'the gods', the violence of technology, and humanity's 'homelessness' as symptoms of the destitution of modernity, and his notion that overcoming 'oblivion of Being' is the essence of a turning to a post-destitute, genuinely post-modern existence. Young argues (...) that Heidegger's conception of such an overcoming is profoundly fruitful with respect to the ancient quest to discover the nature of the good life. His book will be an invaluable resource for both students and scholars of Heidegger's works. (shrink)

Julian Wuerth offers a radically new interpretation of major themes in Kant's philosophy. He explores Kant's ontology of the mind, his transcendental idealism, his account of the mind's powers, and his theory of action, and goes on to develop an original, moral realist account of Kant's ethics.

What is the meaning of life? In the post-modern, post-religious scientific world, this question is becoming a preoccupation. But it also has a long history: many major figures in philosophy had something to say on the subject, as Julian Young so vividly illustrates in this thought-provoking book. Part One of the book presents an historical overview of philosophers from Plato to Hegel and Marx who have believed in some sort of meaning of life, either in some supposed 'other' world or (...) in the future of this world. Part Two looks at what happened when the traditional structures that provided life with meaning ceased to be believed. With nothing to take their place, these structures gave way to the threat of nihilism, to the appearance that life is meaningless. Julian Young looks at the responses to this threat in the work of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, Foucault and Derrida. This compelling and highly engaging exploration of fundamental values will captivate anyone who's ever asked themselves where life's meaning really lies. It also makes a perfect historical introduction to philosophy. (shrink)

This is a clear and lucid account of Nietzsche's philosophy of art, combining exegesis, interpretation and criticism in a judicious balance. Julian Young argues that Nietzsche's thought about art can only be understood in the context of his wider philosophy. In particular, he discusses the dramatic changes in Nietzschean aesthetics against the background of the celebrated themes of the death of God, eternal recurrence, and the idea of the Übermensch. Young then divides Nietzsche's career and his philosophy of art into (...) four distinct phases, but suggests that these phases describe a circle. An attempt at world-affirmation is made in the central phases, but Nietzsche is predominantly influenced at the beginning and end of his career by a Schopenhauerian pessimism. At the beginning and end art is important because it 'redeems' us from life. (shrink)

This book, the first comprehensive study in English of Heidegger's philosophy of art, starts in the mid-1930s with Heidegger's discussion of the Greek temple and his Hegelian declaration that a great artwork gathers together an entire culture in affirmative celebration of its foundational 'truth', and that, by this criterion, art in modernity is 'dead'. His subsequent work on Hölderlin, whom he later identified as the decisive influence on his mature philosophy, led him into a passionate engagement with the art of (...) Rilke, Ce;zanne, Klee and Zen Buddhism, liberating him not only from the overly restrictive conception of art of the mid-1930s but also from the disastrous politics of the period. Drawing on material hitherto unknown in the anglophone world, Young establishes a new account of Heidegger's philosophy of art and shows that his famous essay 'The Origin of the Work of Art' is its beginning, not its end. (shrink)

In an article in this journal, Christopher Cowley argues that we have ‘misunderstood the special nature of medicine, and have misunderstood the motivations of the conscientious objectors’. We have not. It is Cowley who has misunderstood the role of personal values in the profession of medicine. We argue that there should be better protections for patients from doctors' personal values and there should be more severe restrictions on the right to conscientious objection, particularly in relation to assisted dying. We argue (...) that eligible patients could be guaranteed access to medical services that are subject to conscientious objections by: removing a right to conscientious objection; selecting candidates into relevant medical specialities or general practice who do not have objections; demonopolizing the provision of these services away from the medical profession. (shrink)

Brain organoid research raises ethical challenges not seen in other forms of stem cell research. Given that brain organoids partially recapitulate the development of the human brain, it is plausible that brain organoids could one day attain consciousness and perhaps even higher cognitive abilities. Brain organoid research therefore raises difficult questions about these organoids' moral status – questions that currently fall outside the scope of existing regulations and guidelines. This paper shows how these gaps can be addressed. We outline a (...) moral framework for brain organoid research that can address the relevant ethical concerns without unduly impeding this important area of research. (shrink)

Designed for complete beginners, Philosophy: Key Texts is an introduction to philosophy and gives a clear, readable overview of five major texts by Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Sartre, and Russell. As well as providing help in how to analyze these sources, Baggini encourages the reader to question the arguments and positions presented. Invaluable at the start of a course of study, as a concise revision aid, or as a lucid, jargon-free guide for anyone who wants an insight into philosophy, Philosophy: Key (...) Texts can be used either independently of, or together with, its companion volume Philosophy: Key Themes. (shrink)

In order to prevent the rapid spread of COVID-19, governments have placed significant restrictions on liberty, including preventing all non-essential travel. These restrictions were justified on the basis the health system may be overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases and in order to prevent deaths. Governments are now considering how they may de-escalate these restrictions. This article argues that an appropriate approach may be to lift the general lockdown but implement selective isolation of the elderly. While this discriminates against the elderly, there (...) is a morally relevant difference—the elderly are far more likely to require hospitalisation and die than the rest of the population. If the aim is to ensure the health system is not overwhelmed and to reduce the death rate, preventing the elderly from contracting the virus may be an effective means of achieving this. The alternative is to continue to keep everyone in lockdown. It is argued that this is levelling down equality and is unethical. It suggests that in order for the elderly to avoid contracting the virus, the whole population should have their liberty deprived, even though the same result could be achieved by only restricting the liberty of the elderly. Similar arguments may also be applied to all groups at increased risk of COVID-19, such as men and those with comorbidities, the obese and people from ethnic minorities or socially deprived groups. This utilitarian concern must be balanced against other considerations, such as equality and justice, and the benefits gained from discriminating in these ways must be proportionately greater than the negative consequences of doing so. Such selective discrimination will be most justified when the liberty restriction to a group promotes the well-being of that group (apart from its wider social benefits). (shrink)

Arthur Schopenhauer was one of the greatest writers and German philosophers of the nineteenth century. His work influenced figures as diverse as Wagner, Freud and Nietzsche. Best known as a pessimist, he was one of the few philosophers read and admired by Wittgenstein. In this comprehensive introduction, Julian Young covers all the main aspects of Schopenhauer's philosophy. Beginning with an overview of Schopenhauer's life and work, he introduces the central aspects of his metaphysics fundamental to understanding his work as a (...) whole: his philosophical idealism and debt to the philosophy of Kant; his attempt to answer the question of what the world is; his account of science; and in particular his idea that 'will' is the essence of all things. Julian Young then introduces and assesses Schopenhauer's aesthetics, which occupy a central place in his philosophy. He carefully examines Schopenhauer's theories of the sublime, artistic genius and music, before assessing his ethics of compassion, his arguments for pessimism and his account of 'salvation'. In the final chapter, he considers Schopenhauer's legacy and his influence on the thought of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, making this an ideal starting point for those coming to Schopenhauer for the first time. (shrink)

Chapter 1 Idealism § 1 Introduction Schopenhauer says that his philosophy grows out of Kant's, as from its "parent stem" (WR I p.501). ...

Arthur Schopenhauer was one of the greatest writers and German philosophers of the nineteenth century. His work influenced figures as diverse as Wagner, Freud and Nietzsche. Best known as a pessimist, he was one of the few philosophers read and admired by Wittgenstein. In this comprehensive introduction, Julian Young covers all the main aspects of Schopenhauer's philosophy. Beginning with an overview of Schopenhauer's life and work, he introduces the central aspects of his metaphysics fundamental to understanding his work as a (...) whole: his philosophical idealism and debt to the philosophy of Kant; his attempt to answer the question of what the world is; his account of science; and in particular his idea that 'will' is the essence of all things. Julian Young then introduces and assesses Schopenhauer's aesthetics, which occupy a central place in his philosophy. He carefully examines Schopenhauer's theories of the sublime, artistic genius and music, before assessing his ethics of compassion, his arguments for pessimism and his account of 'salvation'. In the final chapter, he considers Schopenhauer's legacy and his influence on the thought of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, making this an ideal starting point for those coming to Schopenhauer for the first time. (shrink)

Numerous high-profile ethics scandals, rising inequality, and the detrimental effects of climate change dramatically underscore the need for business schools to instill a commitment to social purpose in their students. At the same time, the rising financial burden of education, increasing competition in the education space, and overreliance on graduates’ financial success as the accepted metric of quality have reinforced an instrumentalist climate. These conflicting aims between social and financial purpose have created an existential crisis for business education. To resolve (...) this impasse, we draw on the concept of moral self-awareness to offer a system-theoretical strategy for crowding-in a culture of ethics within business schools. We argue that to do so, business schools will need to (1) reframe the purpose of business, (2) reframe the meaning of professional success, and (3) reframe the ethos of business education itself. (shrink)

Julian Young presents Richard Wagner as an important philosopher of art and life, first as a utopian anarchist-communist and then as a Schopenhauerian pessimist. Understanding Wagner’s philosophy is crucial to understanding his operas, as it is to understanding Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Heidegger.

In this paper, we offer a new account of disability. According to our account, some state of a person's biology or psychology is a disability if that state makes it more likely that a person's life will get worse, in terms of his or her own wellbeing, in a given set of social and environmental circumstances. Unlike the medical model of disability, our welfarist approach does not tie disability to deviation from normal species’ functioning, nor does it understand disability in (...) essentialist terms. Like the social model of disability, the welfarist approach sees disability as a harmful state that results from the interaction between a person's biology and psychology and his or her surrounding environment. However, unlike the social model, it denies that the harm associated with disability is entirely due to social prejudice or injustice. In this paper, we outline and clarify the welfarist approach, answer common objections and illustrate its usefulness in addressing a range of difficult ethical questions involving disability. (shrink)

Building Better Beings: A Theory of Moral Responsibility argues that the normative basis of moral responsibility is anchored in the effects of responsibility practices. Further, the capacities required for moral responsibility are socially scaffolded. This article considers criticisms of this account that have been recently raised by John Doris, Victoria McGeer, and Michael Robinson. Robinson argues against Building Better Beings’s rejection of libertarianism about free will, and the account of desert at stake in the theory. considers methodological questions that arise (...) from the account of desert, providing some additional resources for thinking about these issues within the framework of the account. McGeer objects to the particular mode of justification used to motivate the prescriptive aspect of the account. This article presents replies to each of these lines of response. (shrink)

The importance of fairness in machine learning models is widely acknowledged, and ongoing academic debate revolves around how to determine the appropriate fairness definition, and how to tackle the trade-off between fairness and model performance. In this paper we argue that besides these concerns, there can be ethical implications behind seemingly purely technical choices in fairness interventions in a typical model development pipeline. As an example we show that the technical choice between in-processing and post-processing is not necessarily value-free and (...) may have serious implications in terms of who will be affected by the specific fairness intervention. The paper reveals how assessing the technical choices in terms of their ethical consequences can contribute to the design of fair models and to the related societal discussions. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel account of focal stress and pitch contour in English dialogue. We argue that one should analyse and treat focus and pitch contour jointly, since (i) some pragmatic interpretations vary with contour (e.g., whether an utterance accepts or rejects; or whether it implicates a positive or negative answer); and (ii) there are utterances with identical prosodic focus that in the same context are infelicitous with one contour, but felicitous with another. We offer an account of two (...) distinct pitch contours that predicts the correct felicity judgements and implicatures, outclassing other models in empirical coverage or formality. Prosodic focus triggers a presupposition, where what is presupposed and how the presupposition is resolved depends on prosodic contour. If resolving the presupposition entails the proffered content, then the proffered content is uninteresting and hence the utterance is in-felicitous. Otherwise, resolving the presupposition may lead to an implicature. We regiment this account in SDRT. (shrink)

Reasoning that compares two objects or situations to draw conclusions about previously unknown properties of one of them has traditionally been taken to be ampliative and probabilistic. I propose that it is apodeictic reasoning from a premise about isomorphic structures that is often uncertain, but which we may have good reasons to believe. I characterize the structures and their isomorphism, describe patterns of reasoning appropriate to them, and discuss some complications not immediately obvious.

The prelims comprise: Introduction Controversial Choices Kinds of Normative Reasons for Action Limits on Respect for Autonomy Children and Controversial Choice Controversial Choices and the Duty to Strive Toward Perfection and Full Autonomy Acknowledgments Notes References.

In recent years, tech evangelists have made headlines predicting that in the future manual driving will be outlawed. This essay will investigate the question whether a ban of human driven cars can be defended on moral grounds in a future scenario in which autonomous cars are going to be significantly safer than manually driven cars. This article will argue that in such a future scenario manually driven cars, for moral reasons, indeed should be banned from participating in regular traffic. Since (...) the moral argument for outlawing manually driven cars will likely be met by resistance by car-aficionados, in the final part of the paper, we are devising a proposal for reconciling the strong moral case for a ban of manually driven cars with the widespread fondness of manual driving. (shrink)

We can see personhood as a philosophical and historical struggle between positive and negative forms of ‘being at one’, a struggle most succinctly described by Hölderlin, a central figure in Romanticism and in German idealism through his close friendship and collaboration with Schelling and Hegel. For Hölderlin, ‘Being at one is god-like and good, but human, too human, the mania / Which insists there is only the One, one country, one truth and one way’. This paper is an exploration of (...) a range of forms of aloneness, linked by the family resemblance of a number of such ‘solitude’ terms (loneliness, solitude, solitary, aloneness, lonesome, individual, atonement) to the idea of ‘oneness’. ‘Being at one’ was distinctively articulated in the Romantic period, in philosophy as well as in the arts. Based on this distinctiveness, this article presents an historical account of the developing philosophical anthropology of being at one, dividing the development of ‘being at one’ between the pre-Romantic, Romantic, and post-Romantic eras. (shrink)

The Luck Problem has existed in one form or another since David Hume, at least. It is perhaps as old as Stoic objections to the Epicurean swerve. Although the general issue admits of different formulations with subtly different emphases, the characterization of it that will serve as my target focuses on “cross-worlds” luck, a kind of luck that arises when the decision-making of agents is indeterministic.

The idea of moral responsibility is central to a wide range of our moral, social, and legal practices, and it underpins our basic notion of culpability. Yet the idea of moral responsibility is increasingly viewed with skepticism by researchers and scholars in psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and the law. Building Better Beings: A Theory of Moral Responsibility responds to these challenges, offering a new account of the justification of our practices and judgments of moral responsibility. Three distinctive ideas shape the account. (...) The first is the agency cultivation model, which holds that a system of responsibility practices can derive its justification from the way it supports our agency. The second idea, circumstantialism, is a new way of thinking about agential capacities. This is the view that the capacities required for moral responsibility are functions of agents in circumstances, rather than basic features of agents considered in themselves. The third idea is revisionism, or the idea that a satisfactory theory of moral responsibility will conflict with some aspects of ordinary commitments about freedom and moral responsibility. (shrink)

We examine the philosophical and ethical issues associated with conjoined twins and their surgical separation. In cases in which there is an extensive sharing of organs, but nevertheless two distinguishable functioning brains, there are a number of philosophical and ethical challenges. This is because such conjoined twins: 1. give rise to puzzles concerning our identity, about whether we are identical to something psychological or biological;2. force us to decide whether what matters from an ethical point of view is the biological (...) life of our organisms or the existence of our consciousness or mind; 3. raise questions concerning when, if ever, it is morally acceptable to sacrifice one of us to save another;4. force us to reflect on the conditions for ownership of organs and the justification of removal of organs for transplantation which causes the death of the donor; 5. raise questions about who should take decisions about life-risking treatments when this cannot be decided by patients themselves.We examine and suggest answers to these questions. (shrink)

Extant research suggests that individuals employ traditional moral heuristics to support their observed altruistic behavior; yet findings have largely been limited to inductive extrapolation and rely on relatively few traditional frames in so doing, namely, deontology in organizational behavior and virtue theory in law and economics. Given that these and competing moral frames such as utilitarianism can manifest as identical behavior, we develop a moral framing instrument—the Philosophical Moral-Framing Measure (PMFM)—to expand and distinguish traditional frames associated and disassociated with observed (...) altruistic behavior. The validation of our instrument based on 1015 subjects in 3 separate real stakes scenarios indicates that heuristic forms of deontology, virtue-theory, and utilitarianism are strongly related to such behavior, and that egoism is an inhibitor. It also suggests that deontic and virtue-theoretical frames may be commonly perceived as intertwined and opens the door for new research on self-abnegation, namely, a perceived moral obligation toward suffering and self-denial. These findings hold the potential to inform ongoing conversations regarding organizational citizenship and moral crowding out, namely, how financial incentives can undermine altruistic behavior. (shrink)

Omar Rivera’s Delimitations of Latin American Philosophy: Beyond Redemption is an important contribution to the interpretation of central figures and questions of the Latin American philosophical tradition, particularly Peruvian Marxist José Carlos Mariátegui and questions of identity and liberation. Rivera establishes productive dialogues between foundational figures such as Simón Bolívar, José Martí, and Mariátegui and decolonial thinkers like María Lugones, Aníbal Quijano, and Gloria Anzaldúa to posit delimitations of Latin American philosophy that might allow it to move beyond redemptive logics (...) that essentialize identities and reinscribe oppressions in narratives of liberation. This review explores the central arguments of the book and proposes a philosophical and a political issue that emerges from them. (shrink)

One of the central concepts in rabbinic Judaism is the notion of the Evil Inclination, which appears to be related to similar concepts in ancient Christianity and the wider late antique world. The precise origins and understanding of the idea, however, are unknown. This volume traces the development of this concept historically in Judaism and assesses its impact on emerging Christian thought concerning the origins of sin. The chapters, which cover a wide range of sources including the Bible, the Ancient (...) Versions, Qumran, Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha, the Targums, and rabbinic and patristic literature, advance our understanding of the intellectual exchange between Jews and Christians in classical Antiquity, as well as the intercultural exchange between these communities and the societies in which they were situated. (shrink)

Julian Wolfreys starts with loss. All memory is the memory of loss... All that we are, all we experience, all we remember, all that we forget but which leaves nevertheless a trace on us, in us, a trace that countersigns and writes us as who we are (in effect the constellated matrix of Being's becoming): this is a process of loss. This just is loss. Loss is who we are. Loss is authentically the necessary and inescapable inessential essence of Being. (...) Loss names the ghosts, the revenants of Being, Being's others. Neither there nor not there, loss persists as the always already becoming of the thinking of Being. There is more than one loss. There is no one loss. Loss never arrives for a first time. All loss is the return of what is lost to Being's being in the world. From that starting point, the author explores the nature of being and dwelling... of memory and the nature of the traces of the past... of apparition and appearance and perception... of touch and being touched... of the material and the (a)material. In a book that draws in multiple threads from 19th- and 20th-century European literature, he references extensively Heidegger, Derrida, Lacan, Cixous, Celan, Husserl, Woolf, Joyce, Hegel, Badiou, Rilke, Merleau-Ponty, Winterson, Stockhausen and True Detective in an impressive and eclectic tour of the being-becoming-loss.". (shrink)

Of all his contributions to philosophy it is perhaps Kant's writings on ethics that are the most widely read. Kant himself posed the famous question: What should I do? In this engaging and lucid book Julian Wuerth explores the question that frames Kant's moral philosophy and places it in a contemporary context, offering a stimulating and direct path into Kant's moral thought. He opens with a helpful introduction to the main traditions in ethics prior to Kant before outlining Kant’s theory (...) of human nature - particularly his division of the soul into the faculties of cognition, feeling and desire - which is essential for understanding his moral theory. He then introduces Kant’s arguments in his famous Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals , above all for his famous ‘categorical imperative’, explaining the roles of humanity, self-consciousness and freedom in Kant's moral philosophy, and Kant's identification of moral action with autonomy. The second part of the book considers criticisms of Kant’s moral philosophy, including those of Sidgwick and Hegel and asks whether Kant’s categorical imperative can provide moral guidance, before turning to the dominant, constructivist interpretations of Kant's ethics today, as defended by leading philosophers such as O’Neill and Korsgaard. Julian Wuerth argues that constructivist interpretations overlook central features of Kant's account of moral agency and so conflate the demands of virtue and happiness - in effect ascribing to Kant a view that he repeatedly targeted in previous ethical traditions. The final part of the book considers Kant’s moral philosophy from a contemporary perspective. Despite important differences between them, Kant's ethics is shown to resemble virtue ethics in addressing our development as persons, advocating a lifelong process of the cultivation of both our sensible and intellectual cognitive and emotional capacities. (shrink)

Why was it that Francis Bacon, trained for high political office, devoted himself to proposing a celebrated and sweeping reform of the natural sciences? Julian Martin's investigative study looks at Bacon's family context, his employment in Queen Elizabeth's security service and his radical critique of the relationship between the Common Law and the Monarchy, to find the key to this important question. Deeply conservative and elitist in his political views, Bacon adapted Tudor strategies of State management and bureaucracy, the social (...) anxieties and prejudices of the late-Elizabethan governing elite, and a principal intellectual resource of the English governing classes - the Common Law - into a novel vision and method for the sciences. Bacon's axiom that 'Knowledge is Power' takes on far-reaching implications in Martin's challenging argument that the reform of natural philosophy was a central part of an audacious plan to strengthen the powers of the Crown in the State. (shrink)

I contrast Robert Veatch's recent liberal vision of medical decision‐making with a more rationalist liberal model. According to Veatch, physicians are biased in their determination of what is in their patient's overall interests in favour of their medical interests. Because of the extent of this bias, we should abandon the practice of physicians offering what they guess to be the best treatment option. Patients should buddy up with physicians who share the same values —‘deep value pairing’. The goal of choice (...) is maximal promotion of patient values. I argue that if subjectivism about value and valuing is true, this move is plausible. However, if objectivism about value is true — that there really are states which are good for people regardless of whether they desire to be in them — then we should accept a more rationalist liberal alternative. According to this alternative, what is required to decide which course is best is rational dialogue between physicians and patients, both about the patient's circumstances and her values, and not the seeking out of people, physicians or others, who share the same values. Rational discussion requires that physicians be reasonable and empathic. I describe one possible account of a reasonable physician. (shrink)