Stronger collaboration between government organizations (GOs), NGOs, and rural people has long been advocated as a means of enhancing the responsiveness, efficiency, and accountability of GOs and NGOs. This paper reviews the arguments and evidence for specific types of collaboration for sustainable agricultural development, setting it into the context of Korten's (1980) concept of “learning process.” Taking recent examples from Udaipur District in India, it reviews the experiences and potential of collaboration, arguing that, while informal interaction increases and enriches the (...) fabric of pluralist development, certain strategic decisions often require a degree of formality. These include decisions on the development of human resources — here both the users and providers of services. Moreover, human resource development (HRD) must be viewed in the context of the mandates, aspirations, and systems of accountability and rewards of the institutions concerned. These determine whether institutions develop and expand their own human resources or draw upon those of others by collaborating with them. Individuals engaged in these organizations can be more effectively induced to collaborate with others by combinations of flexibility and appropriate reward systems than they can be forced to do so by instructions or commands. Several conclusions follow: decisions to act together are unlikely to progress unless translated into concrete actions; authority to take local-level decisions in GOs needs strengthening if they are to provide the necessary flexibility; and, although collaboration should in principle be built on the comparative advantage of different types of organization, in practice, each will have to incorporate the skills of the other, at least to some level, if they are to communicate effectively. NGOs and GOs must also enhance their understanding of farmers' ability to make demands on external organizations. Edging towards collaboration is a delicate and painstaking process. Only if many of the above conditions are given due priority will early examples have something to offer to the numerous NGOs, GOs and international agencies wishing to learn from them. (shrink)

The moral issues involved in doctors assisting patients to die with dignity are of absolutely central concern to the medical profession, ethicists, and the public at large. The debate is fuelled by cases that extend far beyond passive euthanasia to the active consideration of killing by physicians. The need for a sophisticated but lucid exposition of the two sides of the argument is now urgent. This book supplies that need. Two prominent philosophers, Gerald Dworkin and R. G. Frey present the (...) case for legalization of physician-assisted suicide. One of the best-known ethicists in the US, Sissela Bok, argues the case against. (shrink)

If I say “we are now living in England” or “grass is green in summer’ or ‘the cat is on the mat’ what I say will normally be true or false—the statements are true if they correctly report how things are, or correspond to the facts; and if they do not do these things, they are false. Such a statement will only fail to have a truth-value if its referring expressions fail to refer ; or if the statement lies on (...) the border between truth and falsity so that it is as true to say that the statement is true as to say that it is false. Are moral judgments normally true or false in the way in which the above statements are true or false? I will term the view that they are objectivism and the view that they are not subjectivism. The objectivist maintains that it is as much a fact about an action that it is right or wrong as that it causes pain or takes a long time to perform. The subjectivist maintains that saying than an action is right or wrong is not stating a fact about it but merely expressing approval of it or commending it or doing some such similar thing. I wish in this paper, first, to show that all arguments for subjectivism manifestly fail, and secondly to produce a strong argument for objectivism. But, to start with, some preliminaries. (shrink)

CONTRARY TO GOODMAN’S VIEW, A CLEAR DISTINCTION CAN BE MADE BETWEEN QUALITATIVE AND POSITIONAL PREDICATES. HENCE WE CAN EXPLAIN THAT WE OUGHT TO PROJECT ’GREEN’ RATHER THAN ’GRUE’ BECAUSE THE LATTER IS A POSITIONAL PREDICATE, RATHER THAN BECAUSE THE LATTER IS LESS WELL ENTRENCHED. A PREDICATE IS POSITIONAL IF, TO FIND OUT AS CERTAINLY AS WE CAN WHETHER IT APPLIES TO AN OBJECT, WE HAVE TO FIND OUT THE LATTER’S SPATIO-TEMPORAL LOCATION.

The most common view of suicide today is that it is intentional self-killing.1 Because of the self-killing component, suicide is often described as self-inflicted death or as dying by one's own hand, and the victim is in turn often described as having done himself to death or as having taken his own life. But must one's death be self-inflicted in order to be suicide? The answer, I want to suggest, is arguably no.

THIS ARTICLE CLARIFIES A DISTINCTION MADE BY ME ELSEWHERE BETWEEN PRIMARY AND SECONDARY TESTS FOR THE APPLICATION OF A CONCEPT. IF THE PRIMARY TESTS ARE SATISFIED, THEN OF LOGICAL NECESSITY THE CONCEPT APPLIES, BUT SATISFACTION OF THE SECONDARY TESTS IS ONLY GOOD EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE APPLICABILITY OF THE CONCEPT. THIS ARTICLE IS A REPLY TO ONE BY SLOTE (’A GENERAL SOLUTION TO GOODMAN’S RIDDLE?’ ANALYSIS, DECEMBER 1968) CHALLENGING MY EARLIER USE OF THIS DISTINCTION (’GRUE’ ANALYSIS, MARCH 1968) TO PROVIDE (...) A SOLUTION TO GOODMAN’S RIDDLE. (shrink)

Applied or practical ethics is perhaps the largest growth area in philosophy today, and many issues in moral, social, and political life have come under philosophical scrutiny in recent years. Taken together, the essays in this volume – including two overview essays on theories of ethics and the nature of applied ethics – provide a state-of-the-art account of the most pressing moral questions facing us today. Provides a comprehensive guide to many of the most significant problems of practical ethics Offers (...) state-of-the-art accounts of issues in medical, environmental, legal, social, and business ethics Written by major philosophers presently engaged with these complex and profound ethical issues. (shrink)

The following three papers (by R.G.A. Dolby, R.N.D. Martin, and A. Thomson) were presented to the Science & Religion Forum at its annual meeting in Liverpool, Britain, in March 1988, under the general theme of Tradition & Authority in Science and Religion. An abbreviated version of the fourth paper given at that meeting re-entitled STS Perspective: Value Systems, by W.F. Williams, is printed on pp. 219-221 of this volume (Vol. 9, No. 4). A copy of the full version is available (...) from either the author or the editorial office. (shrink)

This early work by Robin G. Collingwood was originally published in 1924 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'Speculum Mentis' is an academic work on the subject of philosophy. Robin George Collingwood was born on 22nd February 1889, in Cartmel, England. He was the son of author, artist, and academic, W. G. Collingwood. He was greatly influenced by the Italian Idealists Croce, Gentile, and Guido de Ruggiero. Another important influence was his father, a professor (...) of fine art and a student of Ruskin. He published many works of philosophy, such as Speculum Mentis (1924), An Essay on Philosophic Method (1933), and An Essay on Metaphysics (1940). (shrink)