Rabgūzī’s Stories of the Prophets , written in Khwarezmian Turkish contains an account of the life of the biblical prophets and of the Prophet Muḥammed.

_Rabghūzī’s_ _Stories of the Prophets_, written in Khwarezmian Turkish (14th century) contains an account of the life of the biblical prophets and of the Prophet Muḥammed.

This aper is in the main a critical study of Robert Kane's account of the nature of Free Choice. I begin by briefly describing Kane's theory. I then consider four questions about a concept that is...

In this book, French develops and defends a "non-objectivist" theory of the origin and function of moral concepts. In his own words, "a morality... is best seen as a collection of conventions designed to guide the choices of persons; those conventions have the not necessarily intended collective effect of being a system of defense against the tendency of any person to act in a way threatening to the future well-being of the members of the community". In chapter 2, he presents (...) an account of moral concepts as "mixed mode" ideas in Locke's sense, i.e., as combinations of simple ideas "that are not offered, to us in the combined form by 'the real existence of things', but that we assemble or frame to meet certain of our specific needs". The needs that provide the raison d'etre of morality are "the preservation and the betterment of the society to which persons are drawn by reciprocal fear, and held by natural affection and advantage rather than by pure self interest, and only in which can they hope to achieve a sense of worth ". There are resonances of such a view in other recently stated views about the nature of morality and moral concepts, e.g., those of Julius Kovesi, J. L. Mackie, and G. J. Warnock. French acknowledges a debt to these thinkers among others, especially to Kovesi, and also to Donald Davidson. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to develop a Christian doctrine of the Incarnation in the light of a process philosophy of the type expounded by A. N. Whitehead and E. S. Brightman. Rather than offer at this time a detailed defence either of the idea of incarnation or of process philosophy, I wish to show that the two can be coherently related in such a way that each receives a greater degree of completion and clarity. Of course risks are (...) unavoidable in any attempt to make Athens and Jerusalem respond to one another. But the risks and losses would be even greater if the way of isolation and of mutually ignoring one another were accepted. (shrink)

Purpose: Explore public attitudes towards the trade-offs between justice and medical outcome inherent in organ allocation decisions.Background: The US Task Force on Organ Transplantation recommended that considerations of justice, autonomy and medical outcome be part of all organ allocation decisions. Justice in this context may be modeled as a function of three types of need, related to age, clinical urgency, and quality of life.Methods: A web-based survey was conducted in which respondents were asked to choose between two hypothetical patients who (...) differed in clinical urgency , age, pretransplant and post-transplant quality of life, and life expectancy.Results: A pool of 1600 people were notified via email about the survey; 623 responded. Respondents preferred giving organs to younger people up to an age difference of <15.4 years and more clinically urgent people up to a difference in urgency of <2.54 months . Priority varied with the quality of life of the worst-off patient and the relative status of the patients. If both had worse than average quality of life, respondents preferred the better-off patient. When both had better than average quality of life, they preferred the worse-off patient. In analysis according to age versus clinical urgency, the older the patient, the more urgency needed to receive priority. In quality of life versus clinical urgency, the better the control’s quality of life, the more urgency the competing patient required. The worse the patient’s post-transplant outcome, the more urgency needed to receive priority.Conclusions: It appears that clinical urgency is only one of many factors influencing attitudes about allocation decisions and that respondents may invoke different principles of fairness depending the relative clinical status of patients. (shrink)

Decision making and choices are frequent themes in medical ethics. Game theory is based upon modelled decision making. Game theory, and associated logic traps, may have relevance to the clinical practice of medicine and medical ethics. The “prisoner’s dilemma” is one logic trap from game theory in which “rational” decision making on the part of participating individuals can lead to “suboptimal” situations. An example of such a situation involving brain death is presented and discussed from the perspective of the prisoner’s (...) dilemma. (shrink)

The problem of the nature and scope of Causation has again been raised into prominence by recent research on atomic structures and processes, the result being that many physicists maintain that the causational principle must now be restricted to macroscopic changes regarded as the averaged outcome of microscopic events, each of which alone may not be causally determined, or at least not completely so. Of this markedly new departure Professor Eddington is perhaps the best-known advocate. “Physics,” he asserts, “is no (...) longer pledged to a scheme of deterministic law; the search for a scheme of strictly causal law not practical politics.” But the issue concerns not Physics only, for Dr. Eddington at once proceeds to interpret his viewpoint by contending that “science withdraws its opposition to free will”; and thus the realms of consciousness and conduct are once more brought into intimate connection with the realm of physical phenomena. It must of course be recognized that the question still remains highly debatable; for, as Sir Oliver Lodge has recently urged, “break down causality, and we are left with chance. That is wholly unsatisfactory. Chance is no solution”; and he likewise expands his survey beyond Physics by adding, “not in that way would I aim at freedom.” It is scarcely necessary to refer to current controversy in the biological sphere, between those who regard living processes as falling, if only to some degree, outside the domain of causal action, and those who insist that such action is universal, the indubitable proof of their position being prevented only by the difficulties of investigation. (shrink)