Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.Your burden is not to clear your conscience but to learn how to bear the burdens on your conscience.Since the time of (...) hippocrates, Western medicine has assumed that the exercise of conscience is fundamental to its sound practice. Despite significant changes to medical training in the intervening millennia, this emphasis on conscience remains. "The Physician's Pledge" of the World... (shrink)

Phenomenal reports were obtained immediately after participants retrieved information from long-term memory. Data were gathered for six basic forms of memory and for three forms of memory that asked for declarative information about procedural tasks . The data show consistent reports of mental imagery during retrieval of information from the generic perceptual, recollective, motor—declarative, rote—declarative, and cognitive—declarative categories; much less imagery was reported for the semantic, motor, rote, and cognitive categories. Overall, the data provide support for the theoretical framework outlined (...) in Brewer and Pani. (shrink)

This book introduces a new and original sociological conceptualization of compromise after conflict and is based on six-years of study amongst victims of conflict in Northern Ireland, South Africa and Sri Lanka, with case studies from Sierra Leone and Colombia. A sociological approach to compromise is contrasted with approaches in Moral and Political Philosophy and is evaluated for its theoretical utility and empirical robustness with in-depth interview data from victims of conflicts around the globe. The individual chapters are written to (...) illustrate, evaluate and test the conceptualization using the victim data, and an afterword reflects on the new empirical agenda in victim research opened up by a sociological approach to compromise. This volume is part of a larger series of works from a programme advancing a sociological approach to peace processes with a view to seeing how orthodox approaches within International Relations and Political Science are illuminated by the application of the sociological imagination. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between theology and sociology on two levels. The first is in terms of the general disciplinary closure that has marked much of their coexistence, despite the many topics on which they potentially meet. The second level is more specific and concerns the tension in Britain between religious sociology, in which sociology is put to serve faith, and the secular sociology of religion, where religion is studied scientifically. This tension has been addressed before with respect to (...) the history of sociology in France and the United States, but the British case, hitherto relatively unknown, illustrates the potential there was for a more fruitful relationship between sociology and theology in Britain that went undeveloped as the secular sociology of religion eventually replaced early religious sociology. The existence of religious sociology has been written out of the history of the discipline in Britain, such that when theology and sociology began a more serious engagement in the 1970s in Britain and elsewhere, particularly as biblical studies discovered sociology and as theologians and sociologists first met jointly, this earlier dialogue was entirely overlooked. (shrink)

Phenomenal reports were obtained immediately after participants retrieved information from long-term memory. Data were gathered for six basic forms of memory and for three forms of memory that asked for declarative information about procedural tasks. The data show consistent reports of mental imagery during retrieval of information from the generic perceptual, recollective, motor—declarative, rote—declarative, and cognitive—declarative categories; much less imagery was reported for the semantic, motor, rote, and cognitive categories. Overall, the data provide support for the theoretical framework outlined in (...) Brewer and Pani. (shrink)

Religious considerations in medical decision-making have enjoyed newfound attention in recent years, challenging the assumption that the domains of biological and spiritual flourishing can be cleanly separated in clinical practice. A surprising majority of patients desire their physicians to engage their religious and spiritual concerns, yet most never receive such attention, particularly in cases near the end of life where such attention seems most warranted.1–3 As physicians Aparna Sajja and Christina Puchalski recently wrote in the AMA Journal of Ethics theme (...) issue on ‘Religion and Spirituality in Healthcare Practice’, modern medical training is ‘falling short of preparing physicians to help patients with the metaphysical needs of their illness’.4 It would seem then that both patients and physicians might challenge the conclusions proffered by philosophers Jake Greenblum and Ryan Hubbard in ‘Responding to Religious Patients: Why Physicians Have No Business Doing Theology’, in which they claim that physicians ought not to engage religious reasoning for medical decisions. Their conclusion relies on two core arguments: a ‘public reason’ argument and a ‘fiduciary argument’, both of which contend that theology and religious considerations have no place in medical reasoning. We find that two central errors undergird these arguments. First is the fraught notion of an epistemically and ethically normative public reason, and second is a fundamental mischaracterisation of the fiduciary nature of the patient–physician relationship and the nature of medicine itself. In response, we argue that all physicians essentially ‘do theology’ and that, rather than divorcing theology from medical practice, clinicians should make it their business to do theology well. To support the exclusion of religious reasoning from medical decision-making, the authors open with a ‘public reason argument’, suggesting that physicians serve in roles closely resembling those of public officials. As such, the physician as public official ought to limit himself …. (shrink)

"The book mounts a challenge to the notion of a clear distinction between public and private and attempts to account for the mobility of the many boundaries between the two. The first essay introduces some of those problematic boundaries in the light of the influential studies of Habermas, Koselleck, Aries and Chartier, who together have helped shape our understanding of the formation of the modern public and private spheres. A number of essays deal with the nature of public opinion in (...) relation to state control and with the role of the intelligentsia. Some investigate non-political forms of sociability and the creation of various kinds of publics within the cultural realm. Others scrutinize gender roles and the validity of the accepted correspondence of male/female to public/private in the light of women's use of the printed word. (shrink)

It is close to current orthodoxy that perceptual experience is to be characterized, at least in part, by its representational content, roughly, by the way it represents things as being in the world around the perceiver. Call this basic idea the content view.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Possibility of Falsity The Involvement of Generality Notes References.

It is widely affirmed that human beings have irreplaceable valuable, and that we owe it to them to treat them accordingly. Many theorists have been drawn to Kantianism because they think that it alone can capture this intuition. One aim of this paper is to show that this is a mistake, and that Kantianism cannot provide an independent rational vindication, nor even a fully illuminating articulation, of irreplaceability. A further aim is to outline a broadly Aristotelian view that provides a (...) more fitting theoretical framework for this appealing conception of human value. This critique of Kantianism extends to contemporary theorists with a broadly Kantian orientation, including Christine Korsgaard, Stephen Darwall and John Rawls. The problem with these views, at heart, is that they attempt to ground morality in respect alone. Yet it is love, not respect, that brings irreplaceability into view. The paper closes with a sketch of a virtue-theoretic theory that follows Aquinas in taking love to be a master virtue that refines the other virtues so as to ensure a continuous and practically efficacious sensitivity to the irreplaceable value of fellow human beings. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 24.1 (2004) 117-133 [Access article in PDF] Emptiness, Kenōsis, History, and Dialogue: The Christian Response to Masao Abe's Notion of "Dynamic Śūnyatā " in the Early Years of the Abe-Cobb Buddhist-Christian Dialogue Charles B. Jones The Catholic University of America Introduction Between 1980 and 1993, the Japanese Zen scholar Masao Abe resided in the United States, teaching in various places.1 This brought him into contact with many (...) American scholars and theologians, among whom was John Cobb, a Protestant theologian then working in the area of process theology. Many of the ideas that Abe brought from Japanese Buddhism and particularly from the "Kyōtō School" of Japanese philosophy appeared to Cobb intriguingly congruent with his theological work, and the two began a series of dialogues that came to include a larger and larger circle of Christian theologians2 and (mostly Western) Buddhist scholar-practitioners. The end result was a series of informal encounters as well as a series of three formal "International Buddhist-Christian Conferences" (1980, 1984, 1987; a second series of dialogues were held without Abe's attendance starting in 1998 after a hiatus under the name "International Buddhist-Christian Theological Encounter"3 ). From these encounters came an impressive number of publications from Abe and from a variety of other participants in what is sometimes known as the "Abe-Cobb Encounter."The agenda, following Cobb's suggestion and vocabulary, was to allow each side to "cross over" into the other; in other words, to study and internalize the worldview of the other in as much depth as possible without converting or losing one's connection with one's home tradition, abiding in the other side as a guest. Later, one was to "cross back," come home to one's own tradition and reflect on the benefits gained in wearing the other's shoes for a time.4 This agenda, which emphasized understanding the other's worldview and concepts of ultimate reality, suited the highly intellectual style of the dialogues, focused as they were on philosophical and theological concerns. [End Page 117]Nevertheless, even given the concern to study and understand the other's philosophical standpoint, a curious disconnect emerges when one studies the literature produced in this dialogue. During the early phase of these encounters in the 1980s, each side, Buddhist and Christian, appears to have taken one text as normative for the entirety of the other's tradition. For Abe, following his predecessors in the KyōtōSchool, the emblematic textfor Christianity was avery short one: the hymn toChrist recorded by Paul in Philippians 2:6-11. He was particularly drawn to the concept of kenōsis, "emptying," which he thought might serve as a cognate for the Buddhist idea of "emptiness" (Skt: śūnyatā ). While the Christians participating in the dialogueaccepted this as a point of contact, albeit with some reservations, others have objected strenuously to this approach, saying that Abe's method of interpreting this text did not hold to responsible methods of exegesis, and at any rate the passage was much too minute to support an entire theology of God and creation.5The Christian side by and large adopted much the same strategy in coming to grips with Buddhist thought, choosing a brief text as the paradigmatic statement of the Buddhist view of ultimate reality: the Mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā (Root Stanzas on the Middle Way; hereafter the MMK) of the second-century Buddhist thinker Nāgārjuna. In this instance, objections from the Buddhist side were not forthcoming, because Abe himself took the MMK as a normative statement of Buddhist thought. Nevertheless, his own presentation of Buddhism, especially his key notion of "dynamic śūnyatā, " went considerably beyond Nāgārjuna's presentation and thus elicited some objections from the Christian side for not hewing to their own understanding of Nāgārjuna. Because Abe never responded to these objections directly, the misunderstanding was left unresolved... (shrink)

Loneliness in medicine is a serious problem not just for patients, for whom illness is intrinsically isolating, but also for physicians in the contemporary condition of medicine. We explore this problem by investigating the ideal physician-patient relationship, whose analogy with friendship has held enduring normative appeal. Drawing from Talbot Brewer and Nir Ben-Moshe, we argue that this appeal lies in a dynamic form of companionship incompatible with static models of friendship-like physician-patient relationships: a mutual refinement of embodied virtue that (...) draws both persons together. The ideal physician-patient relationship has a dialectical character that fosters each member's improvement of phenomenologically recognizing and embodying moral virtues. A key component of this dynamic is a commitment to the common goal of the patient's health, realized through joint interactivities and conversations over time. The physician's presence to the patient's suffering—understood best as an alienating phenomenological condition for the patient—orients and discloses possibilities for virtuous caregiving by structuring the meanings of the goals, conversations, and joint narrative constitutive of their relationship. Presence to suffering, paradoxically, is perhaps an important prerequisite for this dynamic partnership. These activities dialectically build an interpretive horizon of understanding through which moral goods and character refinement—in and for the other—may become revealed for both persons in their shared being-in-the-world. This analysis of suffering, mood, and revealing of (possible) moral goods has implications for addressing the modern problem of loneliness for patients and physicians, who are increasingly inhibited from building flourishing relationships with each other. (shrink)

For much of the 20th century, brewers owned the majority of British public houses. In 1989, the Monopoly and Mergers Commission brought about the dissolution of the brewers' estates, and two types of pub‐owning companies emerged. One employed managers, and the other leased their outlets to individual operators. In the present climate of opposition to excessive drinking, their approach to retailing is being brought into question, with public demands for a responsible approach. This article examines the different responses of the (...) major firms within the industry. (shrink)

For much of the 20th century, brewers owned the majority of British public houses. In 1989, the Monopoly and Mergers Commission brought about the dissolution of the brewers' estates, and two types of pub‐owning companies emerged. One employed managers, and the other leased their outlets to individual operators. In the present climate of opposition to excessive drinking, their approach to retailing is being brought into question, with public demands for a responsible approach. This article examines the different responses of the (...) major firms within the industry. (shrink)

Eugenicists in the 1930s and 1940s emphasised our moral responsibilities to future generations and the importance of positively selecting traits that would benefit humanity. In 1935 Herbert Brewer recommended ‘Eutelegenesis’ so that that future generations are not only protected from hereditary disease but also become more intelligent and fraternal than us. The development of these techniques for human use and animal husbandry was the catalyst for the cross fertilization of moral ideas and the development of a critical procreative morality. (...) While eugenicists argued for a new critical morality, religious critics argued against artificial insemination because of its potential to damage important moral institutions. The tension between critical and conservative procreative morality is a feature of the contemporary debates about reproductive technologies. This and some of the other aspects of the early and contemporary debates about artificial insemination and reproductive technologies are discussed in this article. (shrink)

It can seem puzzling that there is such a thing as the philosophy of sense-perception. Psychology and the neurosciences study the mechanisms by which our senses receive information about the environment. So conceived, perception is a psychological and physiological process, whose underlying nature will be discovered empirically. Since few philosophers these days would presume to interfere with the empirical products of these sciences, the question arises as to the nature of philosophy’s distinctive role in the study of perception. There is (...) not a philosophy of digestion as there is a philosophy of perception; so what is it, exactly, that the philosophy of perception is supposed to do? (shrink)