In the Critique of Judgment, Kant claims that genius is a talent for art, but not for science. Despite his restriction of genius to the domain of fine art, several recent interpreters have suggested that genius has a role to play in Kant’s account of cognition in general and scientific practice in particular. In this paper, I explore Kant’s reasons for excluding genius from science as well as the reasons that one might nevertheless be tempted to think that his account (...) allows room for the scientific genius. I then argue that Kant’s concerns are not only epistemic, but also moral, and together, they give us good reason for resisting the veneration of genius. (shrink)

Au terme d'une longue recherche en quête du sens de l'art et de son mystère au coeur de nos vies, ce bref essai voudrait revenir sur le point central de jointure entre apparence et apparition qu'on peut désigner sous l'expression de manifestation esthétique. Interrogation ultime que soulève tout grand créateur d'une oeuvre d'art digne de ce nom, à savoir porteuse d'un contenu de vérité authentique. Ainsi du doute de Cézanne hanté au dire de Merleau-Ponty par le soupçon de l'échec de (...) la peinture à conjurer l'illusion des images - ou encore de l'angoisse de Schoenberg à la poursuite d'une musique qui soit espérance messianique (ce que J S Bach déjà avait poursuivi au sommet toute sa vie). Question éminemment philosophique méditée depuis toujours par les plus grands penseurs. Ainsi, au confluent du néo-platonisme et du christianisme, la lecture augustinienne de Plotin ; en plein âge baroque, l'analyse kantienne décisive du sublime au principe de l'imagination esthétique, et, à l'aurore de notre modernité du XXe siècle, l'invocation de Walter Benjamin à "l'aura, l'unique apparaître d'un lointain". (shrink)

This is a response to Macleod 2012's argument that the history of unjust property acquisitions requires rich libertarians to give away everything in excess of equality. At first, problematic questions are raised. How much property is usually inherited or illegitimate? Why should legitimate inheritance be affected? What of the burden of proof and court cases? A counterfactual problem is addressed. Three important cases are considered: great earned wealth; American slavery; land usurpation. All are argued to be problematic for Macleod 2012's (...) thesis. Various problems are explained concerning using the Nozickian argument to decide the alleged excess that rich libertarians own. The essay's main error is the presupposition that free markets do not help the worst-off. The majority of unjust holdings today are not the result of historical injustices but arise through continuing transfers enabled by taxation and state-regulation. More study of libertarian contributions to the social sciences and philosophy would appear to be desirable "personal behavior" among socialists. (shrink)

The Indiana Court of Appeals, in JKB, Sr. v. Armour Pharmaceutical Co. ), held that the state's Blood Shield Act does not protect pharmaceutical companies that produce blood-derived products from product liability suits based on injuries attributable to tainted blood supplies. Blood shield statutes help to guarantee adequate blood supplies by limiting the liability of blood banks. This holding limits the defenses available to pharmaceutical companies sued under product liability theory.The defendant, Armour Pharmaceutical, produces and sells clotting factor agents, which (...) are derived through plasmapheresis. Plasmapheresis is a costly and complex donation process through which the plasma and red blood cells of a donor's blood are separated. After separation, the process returns the red blood cells to the donor but retains the plasma. (shrink)

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is America's strongest environmental law. Its citizen-suit provision—permitting “any person” whomsoever to sue on behalf of a threatened or endangered species—awards implicit intrinsic value, de facto standing, and operational legal rights to listed species. Accordingly, some cases had gone forward in the federal courts in the name of various listed species between 1979 and 2004, when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that animals could not sue in their own name. Because the Supreme (...) Court has interpreted its habitat destruction as the “taking” of a listed species, some have argued that enforcement of the ESA's critical-habitat-protection provision is a “regulatory taking” of private property without just compensation, contrary to the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. The courts have not agreed. The ESA citizen-suit provision appears to waive federal-court standing requirements devolved from Article III of the U.S. Constitution, creating much confusion and mutually contradictory rulings. A series of cases reconciles the ESA's citizen-suit provision with the particularized and concrete “injury-in-fact” standing requirements devolved from Article III. (shrink)

In many parts of Africa three different systems of laws are concurrently applied – the imported "Colonial" law, the indigenous customary law and Islamic law. In some countries the customary and the Islamic law are kept separate and distinct, while in others they are fused into a single system. This volume represents a unique survey of the extent to which Islamic law is in fact applied in those parts of East and West Africa which were at one time under British (...) administration. It examines the relevant legislation and case law, much of which has never appeared in any Law Reports; the judges and courts which apply it and the problems to which its application give rise. (shrink)

This volume represents a unique survey of the extent to which Islamic law is in fact applied in those parts of East and West Africa which were at one time under British administration. It examines the relevant legislation and case law, much of which has never appeared in any Law Reports; the judges and courts which apply it and the problems to which its application give rise.

By lopsided majorities, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a series of cases, persistently commanded the lower courts to condition the admission of proffered expert testimony on the demonstrated validity of the proponents’ claims of expertise. In at least one broad area–the so-called forensic sciences–the courts below have largely evaded the Supreme Court's holdings. This paper aims to try to explain this massive defiance by the lower courts in terms of social epistemology.

This book examines the concept of public interest against the background of English politics from the Civil War to the coming of the Hanoverians. These years witnessed both the rise of the modern notion of the public interest as a part of ordinary political language and the growth of a social philosophy of individualism. The new ideas challenged the _status quo_, based on order, reason of state and national power, in the name of legitimate self-interest and respect for the rights (...) of the private person. In presenting a complex set of ideas in their historical context, the author examines both abstract philosophies and the issues of the day as recorded in press, pulpit and law courts. A chapter devoted to economic thought includes a re-assessment of the social assumptions of mercantilism. (shrink)

On April 26, 1995, the United States Supreme Court limited the reach of the preemption provision of ERISA in New York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Tavelers Insurance Co. ). In Travelers, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of a New York statute requiring hospitals to collect surcharges from patients covered by commercial insurers and requiring health maintenance organizations to pay a surcharge to the state's general fund that varies depending on the number of Medicaid-eligible (...) HMO members enrolled. Neither patients insured by Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans nor the plans themselves are similarly charged under the statute. Several commercial insurers and HMOs claimed the surcharges should be preempted under ERISA because they are levied on patients whose insurance or HMO membership premiums are purchased by an ERISA plan.The ERISA preemption clause means that federal regulation, or lack thereof, supersedes state regulation that is related to employee pension and benefit plans. This preemption clause prevents states from changing health care and benefit law for a significant portion of state residents. (shrink)

In the year of our Lord 1862, Polish painter Jan Matejko finished his first famous work, Stańczyk, fully translated into English as “Stańczyk during a ball at the court of Queen Bona in the face of the loss of Smolensk.”1 The piece was painted in oils and depicts a famous political figure of Renaissance Poland, Stańczyk the court jester. Stańczyk, an influential figure of Polish history who was as much a political philosopher as a funny man, is depicted in this (...) scene sitting alone and apoplectic as a royal party rages on just outside his door. As the illustration implies, he and the partygoers have just received some correspondence that declares the Polish territory of Smolensk has been besieged, and, appallingly.. (shrink)

The advent of personal genomics companies offering direct translation of scientific data into personal health information, calls into question traditional policies to refuse disclosure of such scientific data to research participants. This seems especially true for population biobanks, as they collect not only genotype information but also associated phenotype information, and thus may be in a unique position to translate their scientific findings into personal health information for their participants. Disclosure of such information seems mandated by the expectations raised by (...) biobanks and their participants' rights to know health information, to know clinical research results, to life and health and particularly their right to benefit. Refusals to disclose such information can be grounded in the lack of analytical validity and/or clinical utility of most findings, the need to avoid the therapeutic misconception, the complexity and costs involved in translation and disclosure and the disproportionate burden resulting from the obligation to respect participants' right not to know before any disclosure can be made. Currently, any demands by participants in population biobanks for full disclosure of all pertinent personal health information potentially resulting from the biobank's scientific findings are unlikely to be granted by a Dutch court under Dutch and international law. As the law stands now, a population biobank is neither a doctor nor a personal genomics company. However, in view of the rapid scientific, medical, technological, commercial and social developments, population biobanks must prepare to take more care of their participants' legitimate interest in receiving as much validated personal health information as reasonably possible, in a timely fashion, by developing appropriate translation and disclosure mechanisms. This paper examines whether population biobank participants have the right, under Dutch civil law and international law, to full disclosure, i.e. to all information generated by the biobank that is pertinent to their present and future health. It pioneers the format of a hypothetical court case to elucidate the legal and policy arguments" for and against full disclosure. (shrink)

Over the last two decades, Dutch courts have left room for euthanasia. Although a crime under the Penal Code, euthanasia will usually not result in prosecution and conviction if it is committed by a physician according to rules of careful medical practice ; if the patient's request is voluntary, well-considered, and enduring; and if there is unacceptable and hopeless suffering and there are no other solutions to the patient's situation.

Whether the US Constitution guarantees a right to conduct scientific research is a question that has never been squarely addressed by the United States Supreme Court. Similarly, the extent to which the First Amendment protects the right to communicate the results of scientific research is an issue about which there is scant judicial authority. This article suggests that a crucial guidepost for exploring both these uncharted areas of constitutional law should be whether restrictions on scientific research or communication truly implicate (...) fundamental individual rights or instead primarily concern issues of general social welfare—issues that in a democracy are properly decided by the representative branches of government or their delegates, not by the judiciary. (shrink)

In Barrett v. Danbury Hospital ), the Supreme Court of Connecticut held that the fear of contracting or transmitting HIV or any other blood-borne pathogens is not a compensable injury and does not give rise to a negligence or a medical malpractice claim. The court's decision affirmed the holding of a Connecticut trial court.In June 1990, Allen Barrett was admitted to Danbury Hospital complaining of abdominal pain. He had a history of gall bladder trouble. Barrett was placed on a stretcher (...) in the emergency room. The attending physician diagnosed Barrett's pain as a gallstone condition. During the course of his examination, the doctor noticed that Barrett was sitting in blood. The physician subsequently performed a rectal examination of Barrett to locate the source of the blood. The physician determined that the patient was not bleeding, but that the blood was in fact coming from two slits in the vinyl pad that covered the stretcher on which Barrett sat. (shrink)

The origins and nature of the judicial role of the senate in cases which under the republic were the business of the permanent quaestiones have been the subject of long debate, and a satisfactory explanation has yet to be found for the change that had undoubtedly taken place by the reign of Tiberius. The discovery and publication of the senatorial decree which concluded the investigation into the charge brought in A.D. 20 against Cn. Piso following the murder of Germanicus,2 in (...) addition to the wealth of new material it provides for the political history of the period and the understanding of the methods of the historian Tacitus, allows an insight into the relation of the senate to the quaestio maiestatis which may prove useful in unravelling some of the puzzles which have troubled scholars hitherto. (shrink)

The origins and nature of the judicial role of the senate in cases which under the republic were the business of the permanent quaestiones have been the subject of long debate, and a satisfactory explanation has yet to be found for the change that had undoubtedly taken place by the reign of Tiberius. The discovery and publication of the senatorial decree which concluded the investigation into the charge brought in A.D. 20 against Cn. Piso following the murder of Germanicus,2 in (...) addition to the wealth of new material it provides for the political history of the period and the understanding of the methods of the historian Tacitus, allows an insight into the relation of the senate to the quaestio maiestatis which may prove useful in unravelling some of the puzzles which have troubled scholars hitherto. (shrink)

This paper traces the development of parental rights to accept or to refuse treatment for a defective newborn infant in the United Kingdom and in the United States of America; its main purpose is to explore the common trends from which an acceptable policy may be derived. It is probable that the British law on parental decision-making in respect of infants suffering from Down's syndrome is to be found in the civil case of In Re B rather than in the (...) criminal case of R v Arthur. United States court decisions are strongly influenced by constitutional law and reflect the right to personal privacy. The position on each side of the Atlantic seems very similar but this similarity includes a sense of uncertainty as to legal responsibility. There is a case for agreed guidelines and a suggested format is offered for consideration. (shrink)

The history of Ammianus Marcellinus states that Constantius II renamed the Pontic diocese Pietas, in honour of his second wife, Aurelia Eusebia . pietas refers to sacred dutiful conduct toward all, specifically gods, state, and family. Constantius’ purpose in renaming the diocese poses an interesting question because it holds an important key to understanding the role Eusebia played in supporting her husband's position as emperor. In other words, what kind of part could an empress play in the Late Empire? Constantius (...) may indeed have been honouring his wife. Why, however, would he honour her so? Is pietas just a play on the empress's name, which means ‘piety’ in Greek, or is there a deeper meaning? A search of late Imperial evidence on this woman and etymology on this word is needed. (shrink)

The foreskin is a complex structure that protects and moisturizes the head of the penis, and, being the most densely innervated and sensitive portion of the penis, is essential to providing the complete sexual response. Circumcision—the removal of this structure—is non-therapeutic, painful, irreversible surgery that also risks serious physical injury, psychological sequelae, and death. Men rarely volunteer for it, and increasingly circumcised men are expressing their resentment about it.Circumcision is usually performed for religious, cultural and personal reasons. Early claims about (...) its medical benefits have been proven false. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control have made many scientifically untenable claims promoting circumcision that run counter to the consensus of Western medical organizations.Circumcision violates the cardinal principles of medical ethics, to respect autonomy, to do good, to do no harm, and to be just. Without a clear medical indication, circumcision must be deferred until the child can provide his own fully informed consent.In 2012, a German court held that circumcision constitutes criminal assault. Under existing United States law and international human rights declarations as well, circumcision already violates boys› absolute rights to equal protection, bodily integrity, autonomy, and freedom to choose their own religion. A physician has a legal duty to protect children from unnecessary interventions. Physicians who obtain parental permission through spurious claims or omissions, or rely on the American Academy of Pediatrics' position, also risk liability for misleading parents about circumcision. (shrink)

Every infant has a right to bodily integrity. Removing healthy tissue from an infant is only permissible if there is an immediate medical indication. In the case of infant male circumcision there is no evidence of an immediate need to perform the procedure. As a German court recently held, any benefit to circumcision can be obtained by delaying the procedure until the male is old enough to give his own fully informed consent. With the option of delaying circumcision providing all (...) of the purported benefits, circumcising an infant is an unnecessary violation of his bodily integrity as well as an ethically invalid form of medical violence. Parental proxy ‘consent’ for newborn circumcision is invalid. Male circumcision also violates four core human rights documents—the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention Against Torture. Social norm theory predicts that once the circumcision rate falls below a critical value, the social norms that currently distort our perception of the practice will dissolve and rates will quickly fall. (shrink)

Abortion is the deliberate termination of a pregnancy. In current practice, this involves the death of the foetus. Consequently, the debate on whether those experiencing an unwanted pregnancy have the right to abortion is usually dichotomized as a matter of pro-choice versus pro-life. Pro-choice advocates maintain that abortion is acceptable under various circumstances. The idea that we ought to respect pregnant people’s rights to choose what to do with their bodies – respect for bodily autonomy – is cited as a (...) major reason for granting them abortion rights. Pro-life advocates, on the other hand, claim that abortion is not acceptable under most circumstances. They argue, typically, that the foetus has a right to life. Recent events, such as Poland’s High Court decision in October 2020 to ban most abortions, and the huge protests and outcries this generated around the world, indicate that the abortion debate is far from resolved. (shrink)

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA) is America's strongest environmental law. Its citizen-suit provisionany personawards implicit intrinsic value, de facto standing, and operational legal rights (sensu Christopher D. Stone) to listed species. Accordingly, some cases had gone forward in the federal courts in the name of various listed species between 1979 (Palila v. Hawaii Dept. of Land & Natural Resources) and 2004 (Cetacean Community v. Bush), when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that animals could not sue in (...) their own name. Because the Supreme Court has interpreted its habitat destruction as the of a listed species, some have argued that enforcement of the ESA's critical-habitat-protection provision is a of private property without just compensation, contrary to the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. The courts have not agreed. The ESA citizen-suit provision appears to waive federal-court standing requirements devolved from Article III of the U.S. Constitution, creating much confusion and mutually contradictory rulings. A series of cases (culminating with Bennett v. Spear) reconciles the ESA's citizen-suit provision with the particularized and concrete standing requirements devolved from Article III. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Being and Freedom: On Late Modern Ethics in Europe by John SkorupskiJ. P. MessinaJohn Skorupski. Being and Freedom: On Late Modern Ethics in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 560. Hardcover, $130.00.John Skorupski's Being and Freedom traces the development of modern ethics in France, Germany, and England, as set in motion by two great revolutions: the French Revolution and Kant's methodological revolution in the Critique of Pure (...) Reason. I begin this review by offering [End Page 714] a brief summary of the book (which consists of eight lengthy chapters, an introduction, and a brief conclusion). I then raise some interpretive worries and offer an overall assessment.In chapter 1, Skorupski reminds us that the French Revolution, a physical struggle between opposing factions, was also a battleground of ideas. In opposing the ancien régime, revolutionaries took aim at the "Catholic-feudal order" (27). Underlying this order was an ethical view, "holism," according to which a person lives well through excellent performance of community roles assigned by family, state, and church. When individual interests conflict with these social roles, the latter take precedence. Revolutionaries (partially inspired by Rousseau) railed against this. On their view, persons were born for freedom, not the chains of traditional life. To realize such freedom demanded a radical democratic state. Here, too, fidelity to the ethical whole (the Republic) sometimes required sacrifices on the part of individuals. But in a properly constituted republic, these sacrifices would be self-imposed requirements of the general will.As revolution turned to terror and blood became the regular currency of sacrifice, critics like Guizot saw the ancien régime's parochialism as a symptom of a larger problem with its underlying ethics, one it shared with the radicals aligned against it: its commitment to holism. Holism says that some social entities have a good not reducible to the good of their members. Additionally, these social wholes have their own rights that sometimes override individual rights (28, 59). These features make it easy for holist orders to justify sacrificing individuals for collective goods. If this is the disease, individualism of the sort associated with Kantian ethics can seem to be the cure.Chapter 2 argues that the new critical philosophy resulting from Kant's "Copernican" Revolution is a mixed bag. On the one hand, Kant offers no good reason for positing a noumenal world and locating freedom there (77–79). On the other hand, there is lasting promise in the idea that morality follows from each person's individual autonomy. And yet, in the end, Kant's arguments fail here, too. For deriving morality from autonomy requires an explicit commitment to impartiality, which does not follow from autonomy (83–102). And, even when suitably modified, Kant's ethical principles risk emptiness if they fail to take content from our relationships and social roles (112, 148). Unfortunately, Kant suggests that doing so would perpetrate heteronomy, making such emptiness inevitable (102).By chapter 3, the tension between holist and individualist conceptions of ethics has become Skorupski's central leitmotif. On the one hand, individualists are well positioned to resist oppression and terror. On the other hand, individualism risks atomism and alienation from our attachments and feelings. Such alienation leads Schiller to reject Kant's views on freedom and virtue (161). For our author, this is as it should be.Skorupski next turns to Fichte. Although Fichte takes a step away from transcendental idealism by making intellectual intuition the hallmark of our subjectivity (173), he agrees with Kant that morality follows from autonomy. Indeed, for Fichte, autonomy commits us to striving for full self-sufficiency, which appears to court a similar atomism. Yet this impression is corrected when Fichte turns to politics. There, Fichte grounds rights (as permissible demands) in mutual recognition (182–83). This positions him to see the state and the family as ethical wholes (187–88), pointing away from Kantian individualism back toward holism.Hegel takes these steps away from Kant to their logical conclusion. As Skorupski explains in chapter 4, Hegel argues that the individualist systems grounded in autonomy and abstract right (Moralität) mark but stages on the way to moral... (shrink)

In this paper I shall deal with a new form of Optimism. Rationalists once believed that it was mistaken to suppose that a world without God is a meaningless one; material progress along with the improvement of men and their institutions, indefinitely protracted, ensured that life was meaningful. More recently it has become fashionable to claim that the pessimist, the cosmic mourner, is not mistaken at all, but rather incoherent. It is not that there is no answer to his question (...) but rather that no sensible question has been asked—at least in the terms in which he poses it. The latter qualification is necessary, for no one is denying that people's lives may either possess or lack meaning. Rather what is being denied is that life as a whole, tout court and without limitation, can be said either to have or not to have sense. One cannot, it is argued, regret what could not, logically, be otherwise, and since nothing could possibly count as endowing the cosmos as a whole with meaning it is not logically possible for the cosmos as a whole to have, or not to have, meaning. The regret evinced by the pessimist becomes, therefore, a pseudo-regret. ‘… it is perverse writes Ayer, ‘to see tragedy in what could not conceivably be otherwise.’ Just as a pseudo-problem is one for which there could, logically, be no solution, so a pseudo-regret is one in which there can be no assuagement of the regretted situation. None of this is to deny, of course, that a man can experience a state of mind which might be described as ‘cosmic anguish’, but such an experience has no cognitive value: it is a state of mind, no doubt painful for the possessor, which tells us nothing about the world beyond it. That people have confused this state of mind with a judgement about the world is understandable, but mistaken. (shrink)

The suicidal proclivity of our time, writes the acclaimed philosopher J. Budziszewski, is to deny the obvious. Our hearts are riddled with desires that oppose their deepest longings, because we demand to have happiness on terms that make happiness impossible. Why? And what can we do about it? Budziszewski addresses these vital questions in his brilliantly persuasive new book, _The Line Through the Heart_. The answers can be discovered in an exploration of natural law—a venture that, with Budziszewski as our (...) expert guide, takes us through politics, religion, ethics, law, philosophy, and more. Natural law, the author states plainly but provocatively, is a _fact_ about human beings; as surely as we have hands and feet, we have the foundational principles of good and evil woven into the fabric of our minds. From this elemental fact emerges a natural law _theory_ that unfolds as part of a careful study of the human person. Thus, Budziszewski shows, natural law forms a common ground for humanity. But this common ground is slippery. While natural law is truly an observable part of human nature, human beings are hell-bent—quite literally—on ignoring it. The mere mention of the obligations imposed on man by his nature will send him into a rage. In this sense, _The Line Through the Heart _explores natural law as not simply a fact and a theory but also a _sign of contradiction_. While investigating the natural law and its implications, Budziszewski boldly confronts—and offers a newly integrated view of—a wide range of contemporary issues, including abortion, evolution, euthanasia, capital punishment, the courts, and the ersatz state religion being built in the name of religious toleration. Written in Budziszewski’s usual crystalline style, _The Line Through the Heart_ makes clear that natural law is a matter of concern not merely to scholars; it touches how each of us lives, and how all of us live _together_. His profoundly important examination of this subject helps us make sense of why habits that run against our nature have become second nature, and why our world seems to be going mad.__. (shrink)