Environmental problems have an ethical dimension. They are not just about the efficient use of resources. Justice in the distribution of environmental goods and burdens, fairness in the processes of environmental decision-making, the moral claims of future generations and non-humans, these and other ethical values inform the responses of citizens to environmental problems. How can these concerns enter into good policy-making processes?Two expert-based approaches are commonly advocated for incorporating ethical values into environmental decision-making. One is an 'economic capture' approach, according (...) to which existing economic methods can be successfully extended to include ethical concerns. For example, stated preference methods, especially contingent valuation, have been developed to try and capture ethical responses as 'non-use values' of the environment, in particular 'existence values'. The other is a 'moral expert' approach which confines economic methods to the analysis of welfare gains, and assumes committees of ethical experts will complement economic expertise.Both approaches face problems in terms of addressing many widely held ethical values about the environment. Furthermore, both face problems concerning the democratic legitimacy of their procedures. How can policy-making be made responsive to different ethical values? What role is there for new deliberative and participatory methods? How far do existing decision-making institutions have the capacities to incorporate different modes of articulating environmental values?This policy brief examines the limitations of current attempts to capture ethical values within existing economic instruments and considers how these limitations might be overcome. Section 1 examines the assumptions that standard economic theory makes about individuals when they express values and make choices about the environment. The current models of agents that inform policy-making are seen to be ill-suited to incorporating the ethical responses of agents and this reveals some of the policy failures that may result. Section 2 shows how the physical and social properties of many environmental goods prevent their being treated as commodities. Section 3 considers the problems surrounding conceptions of fairness and legitimacy in processes for environmental valuation. Section 4 raises questions concerning the capacities of policy-making institutions to take cognisance of the results of different methods for articulating environmental values. (shrink)

A vivid exploration of and reflection on the life and thought of twenty-one German philosophers and theologians.

Legalisation of assisted suicide presents a dilemma for society. This arises because of a lack of consensus regarding the precedence to be accorded freedom of choice versus the inviolability of human life. A combination of factors has served to throw this dilemma into sharper focus in recent times. These include population aging,1,2 increased openness regarding end-of-life care,3 development of patients' rights, and increasing secularisation and multiculturalism in society. Against this backdrop and within a context where several countries have addressed legislation (...) of …. (shrink)

Emissions arising from the production and consumption of food are acknowledged as a major contributor to climate change. From a consumer’s perspective, however, the sustainability of food may have many meanings: it may result from eating less meat, becoming vegetarian, or choosing to buy local or organic food. To explore what food sustainability means to consumers, and what factors lead to changes in food practice, we adopt a sociotechnical approach to compare the food consumption practices in North West England with (...) two differing consumer groups. The first, supermarket shoppers ‘embedded’ in the mainstream food regime; and the second, who self-identify as sustainable food practitioners, and who perform a range of sustainable food consumption practices. We examine how our two groups experience changes in food practices and identify ‘fractures’ stemming from lifecourse and public events that emerge as points where change might occur. We suggest that ‘sharing spaces’ would be one possibility for prompting and nurturing fractures that can lead to greater sustainability in food practices. (shrink)

This essay discusses engineering ethics in Puerto Rico by examining the impact of the Colegio de Ingenieros y Agrimensores de Puerto Rico (CIAPR) and by outlining the constellation of problems and issues identified in workshops and retreats held with Puerto Rican engineers. Three cases developed and discussed in these workshops will help outline movements in engineering ethics beyond the compliance perspective of the CIAPR. These include the Town Z case, Copper Mining in Puerto Rico, and a hypothetical case researched by (...) UPRM students on laptop disposal. The last section outlines four future challenges in engineering ethics pertinent to the Puerto Rican situation. (shrink)

In this book, William O'Neill, S.J., offers an interpretation of the nature and scope of practical reasoning in light of postmodern philosophical criticism.

The subject of this paper is the integrity of nature over time—‘diachronic integrity’. The argument of the parer is that any serious attempt to address conservation problems—the kinds of problems faced by environmental managers the world over, needs to operate with an eye to some principle of diachronic integrity. Whilst acknowledging that applying the principle is largely a matter of experience and judgement, we argue that it applies equally both to human and to natural history.

This volume is a collection of ten essays by Douglas Gasking (1911–1994), a significant figure in Australian philosophy. There are three previously published papers, “Mathematics and the World” (proposing a form of conventionalism), “Causation and Recipes” (expounding a manipulation account of causation), and “Clusters”, (an account of certain varieties of class-membership). The seven previously unpublished papers include further work on causation, some epistemological issues, subjective probability, a carefully worked out account of the sense in which observable behaviour can be criterial (...) for mental states, and the distinction between deductive and inductive arguments.The introduction to the volume describes Gasking’s life and work, and a bibliography lists Gasking’s publication, and also works of other philosophers who have engaged with Gasking’s ideas. (shrink)

Focal brain metabolic effects detected by proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) represent prospective indices of clinical status and guides to treatment design. Sampling bilateral pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC), anterior middle cingulate cortex (aMCC), and thalamus in 40 adult patients and 16 healthy controls, we examined relationships of the neurometabolites glutamate+glutamine (Glx), creatine+phosphocreatine (Cr), and choline-compounds (Cho) with OCD diagnosis and multiple symptom types. The latter included OC core symptoms (Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale - YBOCS), depressive symptoms (...) (Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale - MADRS), and general functioning (Global Assessment Scale - GAS). pACC Glx was 9.7% higher in patients than controls. Within patients, Cr and Cho correlated negatively with YBOCS and MADRS, while Cr correlated positively with the GAS. In aMCC, Cr and Cho correlated negatively with MADRS, while Cr in thalamus correlated positively with GAS. These findings present moderate support for glutamatergic and cingulocentric perspectives on OCD. Based on our prior metabolic model of OCD, we offer one possible interpretation of these group and correlational effects as consequences of a corticothalamic state of elevated glutamatergic receptor activity alongside below-normal glutamatergic transporter activity. (shrink)

The year 2018 was the 40th anniversary of the birth of Louise Joy Brown, marking four decades of clinical in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer. Though this milestone, reached first by Steptoe and Edwards in the United Kingdom, is well acknowledged through Nobel accolade, the achievement was not entirely celebrated at the time. Global contention was not just moral, but political and legislative. In the United States, the achievement led in 1978 to the freezing of federal funds by the National (...) Institute of Health for research on human embryos and oocytes.A report published on May 4, 1979, by the Ethics Advisory Board of the Department of Health... (shrink)

A recent study suggests that vaccine hesitancy amongst key demographics – including females, younger individuals, and certain ethnic groups – could undermine the pursuit of herd immunity against COVID-19 in the United Kingdom. At the same time, the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JVCI) indicated that it will not facilitate the choice between available COVID-19 vaccines. This paper reflects upon lessons from the introduction of the UK’s combined Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine strategy of the 1980s when (...) Member of Parliament Miss Julie Kirkbride argued that had parents been allowed to choose between vaccine variants, then the crisis of low herd immunity – and subsequent outbreaks – could have been avoided. This paper explores this argument, as applied to the COVID-19 vaccination strategy, by considering how three key elements of informed consent – disclosure of risk, benefit, and reasonable alternatives – may be employed to tackle vaccine hesitancy and build vaccine confidence. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the role of Anselm’s ontological argument in the philosophy of R.G. Collingwood. Anselm’s argument appears prominently in Collingwood’s Essay on Philosophical Method (1933) and Essay on Metaphysics (1940), as well as in his early work Speculum Mentis (1924). In the proof, Collingwood finds the central expression of the priority of “faith” in the first principles of thought to reason’s activities. For Collingwood, it is Anselm’s proof that clearly expresses this relationship between faith and reason. The (...) two elements of this analysis that must be understood if one is to understand Collingwood’s use of the proof are what he means by “the idea of an object that shall completely satisfy the demands of reason” and the “special case of metaphysical thinking.” I analyze both of these elements and conclude by showing how Anselm’s proof is essential to Collingwood’s historical science of mind. (shrink)

Stroud's interpretation of hume leaves unexplained (1) 'necessity', In particular causal judgments where no general causal principle is known and (2) why a regular sequence of psychological events, But not of physical events, Can give rise to an idea of compulsion or inevitability.

ABSTRACT The UK Supreme Court ruling of Montgomery v Lanarkshire clarified that in obtaining informed consent to treatment, practitioners are under a duty to inform patients of material risks. Traditionally such risk has pertained to the clinical risks inherent to treatment. In examining empirical and judicial evidence, this paper makes the case for disclosure of potent financial interests; with potency relating to those interests likely to have greatest influence over practice. The paper explores how financial interests may detrimentally influence practice (...) patterns and how non-disclosure of such interests may be linked to the erosion of patient trust and subsequent disinclination to consent to treatment. Judicial notions of material risk are explored, and the conclusion reached that they offer a broader interpretation of disclosable risk compared to current UK GMC guidance. It is anticipated that empirical evidence could be used by the courts in determining questions of both materiality and causation in cases of negligent non-disclosure of potent financial interests. The paper concludes that there is sufficient reason to surmise that a test case could successfully apply the principles identified therein to establish the materiality of conflict of interest in informed consent to medical treatment. (shrink)