All illness represents a state of diminished autonomy and therefore the doctor-patient relationship necessarily and justifiably involves a degree of medical paternalism argues the author, an American medical student. In a broad-ranging paper he discusses the concepts of autonomy and paternalism in the context of the doctor-patient relationship. Given the necessary diminution of autonomy which illness inflicts, a limited form of medical paternalism, aimed at restoring or maximising the patient's autonomy is entirely acceptable, and indeed fundamental to the relationship he (...) argues. However, the exercise of this paternalism should be flexible and related to the current 'level of autonomy' of the patient himself. An editorial in this issue comments briefly on this paper. (shrink)
Throughout its history philosophy has been thought to be a member of a community of intellectual disciplines united by their common pursuit of knowledge. It has sometimes been thought to be the queen of the sciences, at other times merely their under-labourer. But irrespective of its social status, it was held to be a participant in the quest for knowledge – a cognitive discipline.
In recent years philosophers have given much attention to the ‘ontological problem’ of events. Donald Davidson puts the matter thus: ‘the assumption, ontological and metaphysical, that there are events is one without which we cannot make sense of much of our common talk; or so, at any rate, I have been arguing. I do not know of any better, or further, way of showing what there is’. It might be thought bizarre to assign to philosophers the task of ‘showing what (...) there is’. They have not distinguished themselves by the discovery of new elements, new species or new continents, nor even of new categories, although there has often been more dreamt of in their philosophies than can be found in heaven or earth. It might appear even stranger to think that one can show what there actually is by arguing that the existence of something needs to be assumed in order for certain sentences to make sense. More than anything, the sober reader will doubtlessly be amazed that we need to assume , after lengthy argument, ‘that there are events’. (shrink)
Among Plato's works, the Statesman is usually seen as transitional between the Republic and the Laws. This book argues that the dialogue deserves a special place of its own. Whereas Plato is usually thought of as defending unchanging knowledge, Dr Lane demonstrates how, by placing change at the heart of political affairs, Plato reconceives the link between knowledge and authority. The statesman is shown to master the timing of affairs of state, and to use this expertise in managing the conflict (...) of opposed civic factions. To this political argument corresponds a methodological approach which is seen to rely not only on the familiar method of 'division', but equally on the unfamiliar centrality of the use of 'example'. The demonstration that method and politics are interrelated transforms our understanding of the Statesman and its fellow dialogues. (shrink)
Consider orthodox motivational judgment internalism: necessarily, A’s sincere moral judgment that he or she ought to φ motivates A to φ. Such principles fail because they cannot accommodate the amoralist, or one who renders moral judgments without any corresponding motivation. The orthodox alternative, externalism, posits only contingent relations between moral judgment and motivation. In response I first revive conceptual internalism by offering some modifications on the amoralist case to show that certain community-wide motivational failures are not conceptually possible. Second, I (...) introduce a theory of moral motivation that supplements the intuitive responses to different amoralist cases. According to moral judgment purposivism (MJP), in rough approximation, a purpose of moral judgments is to motivate corresponding behaviors such that a mental state without this purpose is not a moral judgment. MJP is consistent with conceptual desiderata, provides an illuminating analysis of amoralist cases, and offers a step forward in the internalist-externalist debates. (shrink)
In the First Antinomy of The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant drew two conclusions from the argument he gives. First, Kant took his argument to show that the referent of the concept of ‘world’ does not exist as a thing in itself. For at B532 he says.
This introduction to the Journal of Business Research special issue on anti-consumption briefly defines and highlights the importance of anticonsumption research, provides an overview of the latest studies in the area, and suggests an agenda for future research on anti-consumption.
The study ascertained (1) whether an observer's scope of justice with reference to either the moral agent or the target person of a moral act, would affect his/her judgements of the ethicality of the act, and (2) whether observer judgements of ethicality parallel the moral agent's decision processes in systematically evaluating the intensity of the moral issue. A scenario approach was used. Results affirmed both research questions. Discussions covered the implications of the findings for the underlying cognitive processes of moral (...) judgements, for the link between judgements of fairness and ethicality, as well as for the debate of ethical absolutism versus relativism. (shrink)
Using a scenario approach involving hypothetical moral decisions, the study aims to (1) compare managerial professionals' ethicality judgments with those made by the general public, and (2) ascertain the roles of perceived intensity (Jones, 1991) as well as perceived fairness of the moral issue in judgments of ethicality. While the two respondent groups made similar ratings on variables of moral intensity, fairness, and ethicality; the evaluation processes underlying their ethicality judgments were different. Empirically, the study has also established a link (...) between judgments of fairness and judgments of ethicality. (shrink)
This book aims to give a coherent interpretation of the whole dialogue, paying particular attention to these etymologies.The book discusses the rival theories ...
This paper is an examination of Donald Davidson's writings on the idea of a conceptual scheme--and idea which he famously rejects. O relevance in this is the notion of linguistic relativity and the famous Whorf-Sapir thesis.
Do children have a theory of mind? If they do, at what age is it acquired? What is the content of the theory, and how does it differ from that of adults? "The Child's Theory of Mind "integrates the diverse strands of this rapidly expanding field of study. It charts children's knowledge about a fundamental topic - the mind and characterizes that developing knowledge as a coherent commonsense theory, strongly advancing the understanding of everyday theories as well as the commonsense (...) theory of mind.Henry M. Wellman is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Center for Human Growth and Development at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. (shrink)
This book offers a major reinterpretation of the `secularization' of medieval ideas by examining scholastic discussions on the nature of the common good. It challenges the view that the rediscovery of Aristotle was the primary catalyst for the emergence of a secular theory of the state. A detailed exposition of the content and the context of late scholastic political and ethical thought reveals that the roots of medieval 'secularization' were profoundly theological.
Most published discussions in contemporary metaethics include some textual exegesis of the relevant contemporary authors, but little or none of the historical authors who provide the underpinnings of their general approach. The latter is usually relegated to the historical, or dismissed as expository. Sometimes this can be a useful division of labor. But it can also lead to grave confusion about the views under discussion, and even about whose views are, in fact, under discussion. Elijah Millgram’s article, “Does the Categorical (...) Imperative Give Rise to a Contradiction in the Will?” is a case in point. In it, he takes the New Kantians to task for various flaws in their interpretation of Kant’s moral theory, to be detailed shortly. He concludes with a question and a suggestion. In order to properly dissect the first, “universal law” formulation of the Categorical Imperative, he argues, we first need to understand “why an agent wills the universalization of his maxim” (549). He also suggests that in order to answer this question, we must recur to what Kant himself actually says (550). His question is a good one, and his advice on how to go about answering it is sound. But to take Millgram’s advice is to call this division of labor into question, at least for this case. For it demands close and sustained exegesis, not only of his argument against the New Kantians, but also – in order to assess whether and where they go wrong – of Kant’s text itself. (shrink)
In the First Antinomy of The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant drew two conclusions from the argument he gives. First, Kant took his argument to show that the referent of the concept of ‘world’ does not exist as a thing in itself. For at B532 he says.
A competent and philosophically subtle study of S. K.'s notion of the relation of Christianity and history. The relation of time and eternity, of "sacred history" and ordinary history and the problem of contemporaneity in the Fragments, the Postscript and Training in Christianity are brought into focus through S. K.'s doctrine of the incarnation. This Holm interprets as "fictionalist"; "it is valid to believe that this man is God... as if it were so, although his empirical appearance can never reveal (...) it." --F. M. S. (shrink)
Gordon Baker and I had been colleagues at St John’s for almost ten years when we resolved, in 1976, to undertake the task of writing a commentary on Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. We had been talking about Wittgenstein since 1969, and when we cooperated in writing a long critical notice on the Philosophical Grammar in 1975, we found that working together was mutually instructive, intellectually stimulating and great fun. We thought that we still had much to say about Wittgenstein’s philosophy, and (...) it seemed to us that misinterpretations of passages in the Investigations were so extensive that it would be worth trying to write a detailed analytical commentary. It is difficult to recapture the excitement of those early days in being among the first to work on the microfilms and, subsequently, on the photocopies of Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. We spent many hundreds of hours poring over the typescripts and the often only semi-legible manuscripts, fascinated and privileged to be able to try to follow the development of the thoughts of a great philosophical genius. We talked endlessly about what we had found in Wittgenstein’s manuscripts and typescripts, and debated how it should be understood. The first fruit of our labours was Wittgenstein – Understanding and Meaning. Its guiding idea was to draw attention to the manner in which Wittgenstein linked the concepts of meaning, understanding and explanation, and so to bypass the connections between meaning, truth and truth-conditions that so fascinated philosophers of the 1970s, and to abandon the red-herring of assertion-conditions and anti-realism. After a hiatus of four years, during which time we wrote a controversial book entitled Frege – Logical Excavations and a polemical book on contemporary philosophy of language – Language, Sense. (shrink)
1. Naturalism Naturalism, it has been said, is the distinctive development in philosophy over the last thirty years. There has been a naturalistic turn away from the a priori methods of traditional philosophy to a conception of philosophy as continuous with natural science. The doctrine has been extensively discussed and has won considerable following in the USA. This is, on the whole, not true of Britain and continental Europe, where the pragmatist tradition never took root, and the temptations of scientism (...) in philosophy were less alluring. Contemporary American naturalism originates in the writings of Quine, the metaphysician of twentieth-century science. With extraordinary panache, he painted a largescale picture of human nature, of language and of the web of belief. I believe that in almost every major respect, it is, like the picture painted by Descartes, the great metaphysician of seventeenth-century science, mistaken. But it evidently appeals to the spirit of the times. So it is worthy of critical examination and careful refutation. I shall argue that the naturalistic turn is a cul-de-sac – a turn that is to be passed by if we are to keep to the highroad of good sense. Naturalism, like so many of Quine’s doctrines, was propounded in response to Carnap. As Quine understood matters, Carnap had been persuaded by Russell’s Our Knowledge of the External World that it is the task of philosophy to demonstrate that our knowledge of the external world is a logical construction out of, and hence can be reduced to, elementary experiences. Quine rejected the reductionism of Carnap’s Logischer Aufbau, and found the idealist basis uncongenial to his own dogmatic realist behaviourism, inspired by Watson and later reinforced by Skinner. The rejection of reductionism and ‘unregenerate realism’, Quine averred, were the sources of his naturalism (FME 72). What exactly was this? We can distinguish in Quine between three different but inter-related programmes for future philosophy: epistemological, ontological and philosophical naturalism. Naturalized epistemology is to displace traditional epistemology, transforming the investigation into ‘an enterprise within natural science’ (NNK 68) – a psychological enterprise of investigating how the ‘input’ of radiation, etc., impinging on the nerve endings of human beings can ‘ultimately’ result in an ‘output’ of our theoretical descriptions of the external world.. (shrink)
Background. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated drastic changes to undergraduate medical training at the University of Botswana (UB). To save the academic year when campus was locked down, the Department of Medical Education conducted a needs assessment to determine the readiness for emergency remote teaching (ERT) of the Faculty of Medicine, UB. Objectives. To report on the findings of needs assessment surveys to assess learner and teaching staff preparedness for fair and just ERT, as defined by philosopher John Rawls. Methods. Needs (...) assessment surveys were conducted using Office 365 Forms distributed via WhatsApp, targeting medical students and teaching staff during the 5 undergraduate years. Data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results. Ninety-two percent (266/289) of students and 73.5% (62/84) of teaching staff responded. Surveys revealed a high penetration of smartphones among students, but poor internet accessibility and affordability in homes. Some teaching staff also reported internet and device insufficiencies. Only WhatsApp was accessible to students and teaching staff. Conclusions. For equitable access to ERT in the future, the surveys revealed infrastructural improvement needs, including wider, stronger, affordable WiFi coverage within Botswana and enhanced digital infrastructures in educational institutions, with increased support for students. (shrink)
Since 1994, when the first fetal imaging boutique appeared in Texas, many sites have been established around the country for parents to receive nonmedical fetal imaging using three- and four-dimensional ultrasound machines. These businesses boast the benefits they offer to parental-fetal bonding, but the medical community objects to the use of ultrasound machines for nonmedical purposes. In this article, I present the statements released by the medical community, highlighting the alarmist strategies used to paint boutique ultrasounds as bad science and (...) elevate the medical use of ultrasounds. Through a close reading of the statements, it is shown that the medical community's primary concern is not the health of the fetus or the woman but rather their place as the sole users of fetal ultrasounds. This detailed analysis reveals a medical community fearful that its authority is being usurped and is therefore responding with statements meant to denigrate boutique fetal ultrasounds. (shrink)
