The reader who has scruples concerning logic and proper English will find these excursions from the commonplace world to the realms of divine metaphysics rather difficult.--R. G. F.

Ethical guidelines for conducting clinical trials have historically been based on a perceived therapeutic obligation to treat and benefit the patient-participants. The origins of this ethical framework can be traced to the Hippocratic oath originally written to guide doctors in caring for their patients, where the overriding moral obligation of doctors is strictly to do what is best for the individual patient, irrespective of other social considerations. In contrast, although medicine focuses on the health of the person, public health is (...) concerned with the health of the entire population, and thus, public health ethics is founded on the societal responsibility to protect and promote the health of the population as a whole. From a public health perspective, research ethics should be guided by giving due consideration to the risks and benefits to society in addition to the individual research participants. On the basis of a duty to protect the population as a whole, a fiduciary obligation to realise the social value of the research and the moral responsibility to distribute the benefits and burdens of research fairly across society, how a public health perspective on research ethics results in fundamental re-assessments of the proper course of action for two salient topical issues in research ethics is shown: stopping trials early for reasons of efficacy and the conduct of research on less expensive yet less effective interventions. (shrink)

In this article, we report findings from a qualitative study that explored how the relatives of intensive care unit patients experienced the nurses’ role and relationship with them in the end-of-life decision-making processes. In all, 27 relatives of 21 deceased patients were interviewed about their experiences in this challenging ethical issue. The findings reveal that despite bedside experiences of care, compassion and comfort, the nurses were perceived as vague and evasive in their communication, and the relatives missed a long-term perspective (...) in the dialogue. Few experienced that nurses participated in meetings with doctors and relatives. The ethical consequences imply increased loneliness and uncertainty, and the experience that the relatives themselves have the responsibility of obtaining information and understanding their role in the decision-making process. The relatives therefore felt that the nurses could have been more involved in the process. (shrink)

In this work, Weiss presents his latest views on the fundamental questions of being and knowing which have concerned him throughout his career. He seems to have accepted his own challenge "... that were I to take advantage of what is said in Philosophy In Process and revise the Modes of Being, the result, in effect, would be a new philosophic ‘Aristotelianized’ account." Here, "Aristotelian" refers to any systematic attempt to give categories to "map the universe." This is, in part, (...) the thrust of Beyond All Appearances. This work, like Weiss’ others, bristles with his idiosyncratic technical vocabulary ; but that vocabulary is well controlled here. Unstintingly an effort in speculative metaphysics, this is also a highly readable book. (shrink)

This brief, well-written book expands Weiss’ philosophy of art to include the making of films, and in doing so helps one to better understand much of his philosophy as a whole. For example, the shift from Modes of Being to Beyond All Appearances can partly be understood as the fuller appreciation of what actualities are that has followed from Weiss’ further reflections on the status of art objects. The book presents an argument which is shaped by an exemplary structure, divided (...) into three parts. Part I begins with a definition of film as "... a created visual ordered whole of recorded incidents, providing one with a controlled emotional introduction, primarily to Existence...". The first half of this definition is developed by isolating five essential parts appropriate to any art film: 1) the script, 2) performers, 3) "cinemakers," 4) montagists, and 5) the director. This analysis of part and whole is bolstered by showing how each part can obscure all the others, thus leading to five varieties of art film. None of these, however, is as likely to be great art as is a sixth, in which "... a scriptist makes a film intelligible, a performer gives it focus, a cinemaker enables it to be seen and heard, a montagist distinguishes it from the outcomes of all other efforts, and a director unifies it.". (shrink)

From June of 1955 until May of 1971 Paul Weiss kept a continuous, at times daily, philosophical journal. Volume Six of Philosophy in Process runs from August 28, 1968 to May 22, 1971. Like the previous volumes, it can be taken in many ways: as an independent work, as part of an extended work, or as related to Weiss’ systematic writings.

BackgroundBiobanks and biomedical research data repositories collect their samples and associated data from volunteer participants. Their aims are to facilitate biomedical research and improve health, and they are framed in terms of contributing to the public good. Biobank resources may be accessible to researchers with commercial motivations, for example, researchers in pharmaceutical companies who may utilise the data to develop new clinical therapeutics and pharmaceutical drugs. Studies exploring citizen perceptions of public/private interactions associated with large health data repositories/biobanks indicate that (...) there are sensitivities around public/private and/or non-profit/profit relationships and international sample and data sharing. Less work has explored how biobanks communicate their public/private partnerships to the public or to their potential research participants. MethodsWe explored how a biobank’s aims, benefits and risks, and private/public relationships have been framed in public facing recruitment documents.ResultsBiobank documents often communicate their commercial access arrangements but not the detail about what these interactions would entail, and how risks and benefits would be distributed to the public.ConclusionWe argue that this leads to a polarised discourse between public and private entities and/or activities, and fails to attend to the blurred lines between them. This results in a lack of attention to more important issues such as how risks and benefits in general are distributed to the public. We call for a nuanced approach that can contribute to the much-needed dialogue in this space. (shrink)

We review current theoretical cosmology, including fundamental and mathematical cosmology and physical cosmology (as well as cosmology in the quantum realm), with an emphasis on open questions.

With reference to recently proposed theoretical models accounting for reduction in terms of a unified dynamics governing all physical processes, we analyze the problem of working out a worldview accommodating our knowledge about natural phenomena. We stress the relevant conceptual differences between the considered models and standard quantum mechanics. In spite of the fact that both theories describe systems within a genuine Hilbert space framework, the peculiar features of the spontaneous reduction models limit drastically the states which are dynamically stable. (...) This fact by itself allows one to work out an interpretation of the formalism which makes it possible to give a satisfactory description of the world in terms of the values taken by an appropriately defined mass density function in ordinary configuration space. A topology based on this function and which is radically different from the one characterizing the Hilbert space is introduced, and in terms of it the idea of similarity of macroscopic situations is precisely defined. Finally, the formalism and the interpretation are shown to yield a natural criterion for establishing the psychophysical parallelism. The conclusion is that, within the considered theories and at the nonrelativistic level, one can satisfy all sensible requirements for a completely satisfactory macro-objective description of reality. (shrink)