We face significant challenges in the translation of basic biomedical research into meaningful improvements in patients' health, moving research from “bench to bedside.” The federal government's ne...

A un colloque organisé par le Conseil du Bien-Étre du Québec, à l'automne 1965, M. Jacques Dofny déclarait: « la lutte contre la pauvrete» ne peut se gagner par l'argent » et, par suite, « déclarer la guerre à la pauvreteé, ce n'est pas distribuer de l'argent, même si c'est l'état qui le distribue ». Par contre, il y a quelques jours, M. John Fryer, du Congrés Canadien du Travail, affirmait que le pauvre « a besoin d'argent, non de (...) sermons ». Ces deux positions représentent sans doute, les extrêmes de l'éventail du présent débat sur la pauvrete». Mais pour s'y inscrire avec lumiére, il faut commencer par inventorier, même sommairement, les principales catégories de solutions proposécs. Je veux done premiérement examiner les disproportions entre les limites de ces solutions et l'ampleur du probléme. Je noterai les déficiences de la charité privée et organisée, de l'assistance publique, des assurances sociales et enfin de la redistribution du revenu pour faire ressortir, en deuxiéme lieu, ce qui m'apparaît être les conditions essentielles de la stratégic de la guerre à la pauvreté. (shrink)

This article argues that the early Christian ?order of widows? provides a fruitful model for Christian ethicists struggling to address the medical and social problems of elderly women today. After outlining the precarious state of the ?almanah? - or widow - in biblical times, it describes the emergence of the order of widows in the early Church. Turning to the contemporary situation, it argues that demographics both in the United States and around the globe suggest that meeting the needs of (...) elderly women will become an enormous challenge in the years to come. The order of widows illustrates a three-fold conception of solidarity that has immediate implications today. That conception of solidarity encourages us: 1) to identify the unique medical needs of elderly women (e.g., osteoporosis); 2) to find ways of overcoming their societal isolation, which can increase their risk of medical and psychological problems; and 3) to develop strategies for enabling them to remain contributing members of the community for as long as possible. This essay is a slightly revised version of a keynote address given by the author at a conference on ?Women?s Health and Human Rights? held in Rome, Italy in February 1998 and sponsored by the Vatican, Georgetown University, and the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. The proceedings of that conference were published in Italy by the Società Editrice Universo-Roma in a volume entitled Women?s Health Issues, edited by Spagnolo and Gambino (2003). (shrink)

The alienation of labour is both classical and contemporary. In its classical form, it speaks to the potential dehumanisation of workers in capitalist societies. In its contemporary form, it manifests itself in the disenfranchisement of the individual because of changes in organised global workplaces. Over the years, Africa’s labour transition from traditional spirituality to contemporary organised global workplaces has fuelled new forms of public labour alienation. Civil servants, in some African countries, experience labour alienation reminiscent of work under capitalism. This (...) is in contradiction to the pre-colonial and traditional view of work as a vocation. Zimbabwe is undergoing negative economic, social, and political growth that has resulted in the alienation of civil servants. The government reneges on its public role of providing space for individual growth and well-being in preference for ‘public capitalism’ and cultural alienation. The potential for an effective public service lies in changing the work culture. Contribution: This article interrogates the impacts of the work culture within the public service in Zimbabwe in an attempt to proffer a return to the African traditional spirituality of work that was founded on the principles of ubuntu. It recognises the traditional symbiotic relationship between being and doing among the indigenous African communities as the panacea for the continent’s human capital development. (shrink)

This essay serves as an introduction to this issue of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy on commodification and health care. The essay attempts to sharpen the articulation of generally expressed worries about the commodification of health care. It does so by defining commodification, analyzing three components of the good of health care, and attempting to assess how commodification might distort the shape of each of those components. Next, it explores how the good of health care might be distorted by (...) the market-based principle of distributive justice, "to each according to ability to pay." Finally, it identifies two basic questions about the relationship of medicine and the market that merit further exploration. How does the market-based language of "incentives" so pervasive in the world of managed care distort the complex patterns of virtue and vice that motivate actors in the health care arena? If we recognize that we cannot eliminate the influence of money from the health care system, how can we insure that the good of health care remains, in Radin's terms, "incompletely commodified"? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:TOWARD A THOMISTIC PERSPECTIVE ON ABORTION AND THE LAW IN CONTE:MPORARY AMERICA M. CATHLEEN KAVENY Yale University New Haven, Oonnecticut Introduction W;HEN THE SUPREME COURT handed down its abortion decision Webster v. Reproductive Health Services 1 in the summer of 1989, it was widely prel 109 S. Ct. 3040 (1989). All further citations to Webster will be given parenthetically in the text. To summarize the most significant aspects. of (...) the decision: A. Chief Justice Rehnquist authored an opinion of the Oourt (of the highest precedential value) which was joined by Justices White, Kennedy, Scalia, and O'Connor. The majority found the lower courts to be in error in striking down as unconstitutional the preamble to a Missouri statute which asserted that "the life -0f each human being begins at conception." The opinion of the Court also found that Missouri could constitutionally prohibit the use of public employees and facilities in the performance of abortions not necessary to save the mother's life. B. The Court also upheld the Missouri statute's provision requiring a. doctor to perform viability tests before aborting a fetus the doctor believes is of 20 or more weeks gestational age. In the plurality opinion (of less precedential value than an opinion -0f the Court, since it is not joined by a majority of the justices), Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice White, and Justice Kennedy argued that since most fetuses are not viable at twenty weeks, the provision would impose substantial restrictions unrelated to the health of the mother upon what are, in fact, simply sec-0nd trimester abortions. Because they believed such restrictions to be in tension with Roe's trimester system, the plurality decided to abandon that system, along with its stipulation that the state's interest in unborn life became compelling only at viability. The plurality contended, however, that Webster presented no occasion for reconsidering Roe's holding, which deemed unconstitutional a statute prohibiting all abortions except those necessary to save the life of the mother. In a concurring opinion, Justice Scalia went further, arguing that the Court should explicitly overrule Roe v. Wade. On the other hand, Justice O'Connor, 848 344 M. CAT'HLEEN KAVENY dieted that this would exaicerbate a dangerously bitter social·struggle. In its 1973 decision Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113), the court had e1abo:raJted.a woman's right to abortion, and, in rthe sixteen years that fo11owed it, it ga,V'e that right unwavering support. Webster 'seemed to mark a retl.'eat from that support. The new scope it offered for state regulation of rubortion promised rto ignite gra,ss-roots forvor and a stiate..:by-state battle between those seeking rto maintain the abortion rights est1ab1isihed by Roe and its sequalia and those st:dving to limit the s1oope of these rights in 1 significant ways. Much of the criticism of Webster has fooused narrowly upon how weM the,decision has aiocorided with various views on the morality of abortion. Yet important 1as this issue is, thorough ethicaJ ana:lysis of Webster must address severa1l additional fac~ tors. The ethiicatl aidequacy of positive law, induding judicial interpretations of faw siuch as Webster, must he ev1alruated in terms of whetheir it aidvanices or impedes the common good. The common good requires not only that we consider the moml substance of legal requirements but tha:t we ailso attend to the manner in which law is made, promulgated, ml!d interpreted. Such an analysis is,sorely needed; it should. specify the severa1l factors involved in determining whether any given legal also concurring in the plurality's judgment, maintained that this provision of the statute could be upheld without any reconsideration of Roe, since it co· hered with that decision's recognition of the compelling state interest in viable fetal life. C. Justice Blackmun authored an opinion dissenting from the majority on the issues discussed above, and he was joined by Justices Brennan and Mar· shall. The thrust of his opposition is directed against the plurality's treatment of the viability testing,provisions. Blackmun first suggested that i.f understood according to the canons of proper statutory interpretation, these provisions unconstitutionally restrict the attending physician... (shrink)

This article considers the sort of diversity in perspective appropriate for a presidential commission on bioethics, and by implication, high-level governmental commissions on ethics more generally. It takes as its point of comparison the respective reports on human cloning produced by the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, appointed by President Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush's President's Council on Bioethics, under the leadership of its original chair, Leon Kass. I argue that the Clinton Commission Report exemplifies forensic diversity (the type of (...) diversity between contesting parties in a legal case), while the Kass Council Report exemplifies academic diversity (the diversity found in a medieval disputatio). Drawing upon Thomas Aquinas, I argue that the type of diversity most appropriate for such advisory bodies is deliberative diversity, which facilitates the President's process of taking counsel. After considering their respective charges, I suggest that neither the Clinton Commission nor the Kass Council possessed an adequate degree of deliberative diversity for their respective tasks. (shrink)

M. Kneale; XIII—Eternity and Sempiternity, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 69, Issue 1, 1 June 1969, Pages 223–238, https://doi.org/10.1093/aris.

The report produced by the National Bioethics Advisory Commission at the request of President Bill Clinton, titled Cloning Human Beings, provides a good example of the two-pronged approach to religion in bioethics. The report merits careful scrutiny precisely because of the deftness with which it appears to negotiate the thorny questions surrounding the role of religion in public policy. Analysis of the structure, arguments, and rhetoric of the report reveals the theoretical and practical inadequacy of the currently reigning two-pronged approach (...) to the role of religious perspectives in the field of bioethics. (shrink)

In "Democracy and Tradition," Jeffrey Stout contends that American constitutional democracy constitutes a well-functioning moral and political tradition that is not hostile to religion, although it does not depend on any specifically religious claims. I argue that Stout's contention is supported by a consideration of the great common law subject of contracts, as taught to first-year law students across the United States. First, I demonstrate how contract law can fruitfully be understood as a Maclntyrean tradition. Second, I illustrate the moral (...) richness of this tradition, and the mutually interpreting nature of rules and facts, by close attention to one particularly colorful case, Syester v. Banta. I conclude by suggesting that both religious and secular ethicists might find common law cases in general and contract law cases in particular to be a source of moral reflection that is substantively rich without being religiously divisive. (shrink)

The emphasis of this short synopsis lies on the way how different authors are struggling with the challenges caused by scientific or frankly physicalistic approaches to the phenomenon of time. It shows how they are trying to maintain something like uncontrollable, immediate human experience of things that are happening in time, something that may get lost if time is completely submitted to precise measurement. Three of the papers discussed are dealing with our way to look at history, while the others (...) have their focus on different ways of describing the gap between individual experience and objective “clock time”. (shrink)

The teratogenic effect of ethanol on human and animal embryos is now well documented. Recent studies have clearly demonstrated that ethanol and related spindle‐acting agents may additionally interfere with normal meiotic chromosome segregation during oocyte maturation, leading to the production of aneuploid embryos. The mode of action, and potential hazard posed by these agents is considered.

: This article draws upon the Roman Catholic distinction between "ordinary" and "extraordinary" means of medical treatment to analyze the case of "Jodie" and "Mary," the Maltese conjoined twins whose surgical separation was ordered by the English courts over the objection of their Roman Catholic parents and Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. It attempts to shed light on the use of that distinction by surrogate decision makers with respect to incompetent patients. In addition, it critically analyzes (...) various components of the distinction by comparing the reasoning used by Catholic moralists in this case with the reasoning used in other cases that raise similar issues, including women facing crisis pregnancies who prefer abortion to adoption and the Indiana "Baby Doe" case. (shrink)

This essay invites Christian ethicists to engage in a mutually beneficial conversation with the secular law, particularly the common law. It argues that the common law's feature of narrative accountability provides a natural bridge to Christian ethics. It also points out contact points between the two fields regarding normative concepts of persons, actions, norms, and the common good. Finally, it illustrates the possibilities of a conversation between law and Christian ethics by delving into the leading case on the doctrine of (...) unconscionability, which permits courts to refuse to enforce contracts that shock the conscience. (shrink)

Recent advanced statistical analysis of complex spikes has revealed that their instantaneous firing rate within a time bin of a few milliseconds carries information if many trials are averaged, as happens in motor learning. The firing rate encodes sensory error signals in the inverse-dynamics motor-command coordinates, and these are exactly the same coordinates as for simple spikes. This strongly supports the most critical assumption of the feedback-error-learning model and argues against several hypotheses about the functions of the complex spikes. [HOUK (...) et al.; SIMPSON et al.; SMITH; THACH]. (shrink)

RésuméCet article vise à établir que la place centrale d'Avicenne dans l'histoire intellectuelle de l'Islam ne se limite pas aux disciplines de la philosophie théorique, mais que cet auteur a eu aussi une influence profonde et forte sur la conception de la philosophie pratique jusqu'aux temps modernes. J'analyserai l'impact de la conception avicénienne de la philosophie pratique en étudiant les différentes classifications de la philosophie pratique proposées par Avicenne tout au long de sa carrière ainsi que les facteurs motivant sa (...) négligence de la philosophie pratique dans ses sommes philosophiques, sur la base de sa conception des relations entre philosophie etšarīʿa. Pour établir ma thèse concernant l'influence de cet auteur sur la conception de la philosophie pratique dans la tradition islamique, j'étudierai des œuvres majeures concernant la classification des sciences ainsi que les commentaires et gloses relatifs aux deux sommes philosophiques les plus importantes et les plus largement diffusées dans la tradition philosophique post-avicénienne, que sont lesHidāyat al-ḥikmad'al-Abharī's et lesḤikmat al-ʿaynd'al-Kātibī's. (shrink)

Russian-Australian relations in the sphere of nuclear power are studied in this article. The history, evolution, current state and prospects of these relations are analyzed. Two agreements between the USSR/Russia and Australia on cooperation in the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes of 1990and 2007 are studied and compared. The difference between two agreements is analyzed. Positive influence of these agreements on the intergovernmental relations is emphasized. According to the new agreement the expansion of cooperation in the sphere of (...) peaceful use of nuclear energy comparing with the previous agreement is also underlined. The cooperation in the sphere of supply and trade of Australian uranium using international fuel cycle center at Angarsk for enrichment is analyzed and defined as good and profitable for both countries. The positive influence of the cooperation on all spheres is emphasized. Factors influencing on the development of the relations are outlined. The change of political situation led to the confrontation between partners and the suspension of Australian uranium sales to Russia. The suspension of cooperation instead of written and ratified agreement led to significant degradation of Russian-Australian relations in economic and humanitarian spheres. (shrink)

In recent years, the non-relativistic quantum dynamics derived from three assumptions; probability current conservation, average energy conservation, and an epistemic momentum uncertainty. Here we show that, these assumptions can be derived from a natural extension of classical statistical mechanics.

If the exclusive promotion of values inimical to our basic humanity extends to the health care policy arena, we face a defensive, restricted, impersonal and ultimately impoverished health care system. Americans know it already as ‘managed-care’. This is why it is crucial for health policy analysts to make explicit the role of values in policy-making, especially that involving the input of ‘value-neutral’ economics. The nature of any clinical effectiveness policy will be determined by the understanding of cost-effectiveness employed in its (...) design and implementation. Given that cost-effectiveness is nowadays usually defined according to health economists’ criteria, the battle over the meaning of clinical effectiveness is a significant development in health economics’ move to assume control of the NHS. (shrink)