1988 : Does being a Christian physician really matter? / Edmund D. Pellegrino, response by John Robinson -- 1989: Clinical medical ethics: a review of the first decade / Mark Siegler, response by Maura Ryan -- 1990 : Who or what is an embryo? / Richard McCormick, response Margaret Monahan Hogan -- 1991: Euthanasia: Where is the debate going? / Daniel Callahan, response by Paul Weithman -- 1992: The moral inevitability of two tiers (...) of health care / H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., response by Joel James Shuman -- 1993: Compasionate care of the dying / James F. Bresnahan, response by John Young. (shrink)

Next SectionIn just forty years, the United States has witnessed the transition in the understanding of the practice of elective abortion from that of a heinous act to that of the most common surgical procedure performed on young women. That transition was facilitated first by a set of ideas which became practices which became habitual and determinative of character and, when taken together, contributed to a tectonic shift in culture. The ideas are to be found in a set of claims—liberty (...) claims and equality claims—that elevate the will of the individual against the structures of the real world. The practices grew out of and were nourished in a matrix fashioned in the sexual revolution made effective by technological and medical advances. The practices, having been made habitual, altered the understanding of sexual activity and recast the understanding of marriage and its ends. This article delineates the defining elements that wrought such a transformation in culture. It will suggest that without a radical retransformation this culture, which has embraced the killing of the hidden vulnerable, carries the seeds of its own destruction. And it will present a response from the perspective of a woman who is by profession a philosopher and who is, by God’s grace, a Roman Catholic. (shrink)

Margaret Monahan Hogan; Catholic Health Care Institutions: Dinosaurs Awaiting Extinction or Safe Refuge in a Culture of Death, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenic.

This paper focuses on the possibility of sin as intellectual evil as operative in the contemporaneous culture in the debate over the essential nature of marriage and the accomplishment of the ends of marriage. It presents an account of theology as a science and the application of this understanding and its canons of operation to the issues presented in two recent documents—the Statement of the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research and the Affirmation of the Church’s Teaching on the Gift of (...) Sexuality, each of which addresses the encyclical Humanae vitae on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. The paper concludes with an examination of the essential nature of marriage to guide the fulfillment of its ends now described as intrinsic/essential and intrinsic/contingent. (shrink)

John Dewey and Ludwig Wittgenstein offer devastating critiques of the dominant model of human action that each inherited in their own time. Dewey, very early in his philosophical career, ostensibly put the stimulus–response mechanical understanding of action to rest with his “reflex-arc” concept article. Wittgenstein famously redescribed action as moves within language games that interconnect to constitute an interpretively open-ended form of life. In each case, these fundamental insights serve as heuristics, guiding our intellectual activity with regard to understanding (...) our practices, and as reminders in approaching problems. Several scholars have interpreted Dewey and Wittgenstein as allies in a grand project of... (shrink)

One of the most distinguished living social philosophers, Margaret Gilbert develops and extends her application of plural subject theory of human sociality, first introduced in her earlier works On Social Facts and Living Together. Sociality and Responsibility presents an extended discussion of her proposal that joint commitments inherently involve obligations and rights, proposing, in effect, a new theory of obligations and rights. In addition, it demonstrates the extensive range and fruitfulness of plural subject theory by presenting accounts of social (...) rules, scientific change, political obligation, collective remorse, collective guilt, shared intention and an important class of rights and obligations. (shrink)

Literature provides us with otherwise unavailable insights into the ways emotions are produced, experienced and enacted in human social life. It is particularly valuable because it deepens our comprehension of the mutual relations between emotional response and ethical judgment. These are the central claims of Hogan's study, which carefully examines a range of highly esteemed literary works in the context of current neurobiological, psychological, sociological and other empirical research. In this work, he explains the value of literary study (...) for a cognitive science of emotion and outlines the emotional organization of the human mind. He explores the emotions of romantic love, grief, mirth, guilt, shame, jealousy, attachment, compassion and pity - in each case drawing on one work by Shakespeare and one or more works by writers from different historical periods or different cultural backgrounds, such as the eleventh-century Chinese poet Li Ch'ing-Chao and the contemporary Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of corporate social responsibility in Brazil, a country of vast regional and economic differences. Despite abundant natural resources and centers of advanced technology, large numbers of Brazilians live in poverty. Historical factors, which to some extent explain Brazil’s social and economic inequalities – a long period of colonialism, followed by populist reform, repressive military measures, foreign debt, unfair trade agreements, and problems of corruption – have persisted into the current period of democratic reform, marked by (...) economic and political trends toward democratization and corporate social responsibility. This paper considers the civic and business organizations that have been developing strategies to encourage social responsibility and government policies aimed at alleviating poverty. Despite progress, the complexity of the Brazilian context presents challenges for social and economic equality. (shrink)

I briefly reprise a few themes of my book Moral Understandings in order to address some questions about responsibility and justification. I argue for a thoroughly situated and naturalized view of moral justification that warns us not to take moral universalism too easily at face value. I also argue for the significance of reports of experience, among other kinds of empirical evidence, in testing the habitability of moral forms of life.

This book offers and affirms an innovative governance approach, arguing that it holds promise as a universal framework that is not colonizing in nature due to its grounding in relational process assumptions and practices.

This book presents a critique of dominant governance theories grounded in an understanding of existence as a static, discrete, mechanistic process, while also identifying the failures of theories that assume dynamic alternatives of either a radically collectivist or individualist nature. Relationships between ontology and governance practices are established, drawing upon a wide range of social, political, and administrative theory. Employing the ideal-type method and dialectical analysis to establish meanings, the authors develop a typology of four dominant approaches to governance. The (...) authors then provide a systematic analysis of each governance approach, thoroughly unpacking and critiquing each one and exploring the relationships and movements among them that engender reform and revolution as well as retrenchment and obfuscation of power dynamics. After demonstrating that each governance approach has fatal flaws within a diverse global context, the authors propose an alternative they call Integrative Governance. As a synthesis of the ideal-types, Integrative Governance is neither individualist nor collectivist, while still maintaining the dynamic character required to accommodate responsiveness to cultural contexts. (shrink)

Moral Repair examines the ethics and moral psychology of responses to wrongdoing. Explaining the emotional bonds and normative expectations that keep human beings responsive to moral standards and responsible to each other, Margaret Urban Walker uses realistic examples of both personal betrayal and political violence to analyze how moral bonds are damaged by serious wrongs and what must be done to repair the damage. Focusing on victims of wrong, their right to validation, and their sense of justice, Walker presents (...) a unified and detailed philosophical account of hope, trust, resentment, forgiveness, and making amends - the emotions and practices that sustain moral relations. Moral Repair joins a multidisciplinary literature concerned with transitional and restorative justice, reparations, and restoring individual dignity and mutual trust in the wake of serious wrongs. (shrink)

The central problem of social theory is 'structure and agency'. How do the objective features of society influence human agents? Determinism is not the answer, nor is conditioning as currently conceptualised. It accentuates the way structure and culture shape the social context in which individuals operate, but it neglects our personal capacity to define what we care about most and to establish a modus vivendi expressive of our concerns. Through inner dialogue, 'the internal conversation', individuals reflect upon their social situation (...) in the light of current concerns and projects. On the basis of a series of unique, in-depth interviews, Archer identifies three distinctive forms of internal conversation. These govern agents' responses to social conditioning, their individual patterns of social mobility and whether or not they contribute to social stability or change. Thus the internal conversation is seen as being the missing link between society and the individual, structure and agency. (shrink)

Forgiveness and Retribution: Responding to Wrongdoing argues that ultimately, forgiveness is always the appropriate response to wrongdoing. In recent decades, many philosophers have claimed that unless certain conditions are met, we should resent those who have wronged us personally and that criminal offenders deserve to be punished. Conversely, Margaret Holmgren posits that we should forgive those who have ill-treated us, but only after working through a process of addressing the wrong. Holmgren then reflects on the kinds of laws (...) and social practices a properly forgiving society would adopt. (shrink)

Why decolonize knowledge and philosophy? Pascah Mungwini proposes that epistemic decolonization should be implemented to remain true to the spirit of philosophy and to the idea of humanity. Aaron Creller, Michael Monahan, and Esme Murdock focus on different aspects of Mungwini’s proposal in their individual responses. Creller suggests some “best practices” so that comparative epistemology can take into account the parochial embeddedness of universal reason. While Monahan underscores that world philosophy as a project must openly acknowledge its own (...) incompleteness and its instantiation in different world philosophies, Esme Murdock uses Glissant’s thoughts to make a case for the right to opacity as a strategy for subverting the dominating power of Euroamerican reason. In his reply, Mungwini underscores that philosophy will be able to increase the amount of justice, beauty, and truth in this world only when its practitioners begin to exhibit genuine pluralism in their work. (shrink)

In this paper I evaluate the nature of the claim that agent-centered restrictions render deontology inconsistent and address three seemingly promising responses available to the deontologist. The first response is inspired by Kant’s essay “On a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns.” The latter two responses appeal to the importance of personal moral integrity and the moral worth of actions, respectively. I conclude that neither response will allow the deontologist to refute the charge of inconsistency.

The use of psychometric tools to investigate the impact of school-based wellbeing programs raises a number of ethical issues around students’ rights, confidentiality and protection. Researchers have explicit ethical obligations to protect participants from potential psychological harms, but guidance is needed for effectively navigating disclosure of identifiable confidential information that indicates signs of psychological distress. Drawing on a large-scale study examining student, school, and system-based factors that impact the implementation of a school-based social and emotional learning program, we describe patterns (...) of distress attained from quantitative and qualitative questions and describe the process that we evolved to monitor and disclose sensitive mental health information, providing one example of how researchers might effectively address the responsibilities that emerge when collecting sensitive information from students within an education system. The patterns and processes that emerged illustrate that the inclusion of mental distress information can elicit important insights, but also brings responsibilities for minimising risks and maximising benefits. (shrink)

The development of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has caused worldwide debate and has required us to reevaluate theories of social responsibility. This article, first, briefly discusses the progressive stages of social responsibility that scholars have outlined as they examine the history of businesses. Next an overview of the development of the DuPont corporation in the United States is presented, tracing DuPont’s transformation from an explosives and chemicals company into a life-science corporation and demonstrating how outside factors influenced this change. The (...) article then turns to the activities of the DuPont corporation in Brazil, a country with one of the world’s largest agricultural economies – and examines how the debate on GMOs is unfolding within the Brazilian context. It discusses how differing interest groups have taken part in this debate, the limits of their arguments, and the need to develop means for providing open collaborative efforts in evaluating new technologies. (shrink)

In response to the wonderful work of the editors and contributors to this special issue, we offer some combined reflections on the importance of place to the Thesis Eleven project, broadly defined, and including the textbooks that grew out of this field. We return to the impact and influence of two major intellectual resources in the work and thinking of Bernard Smith and George Seddon. These mavericks helped us to think our own sense of place, and to engage with (...) the other places that we encountered and also sometimes think of as home. Place here nestles with movement as central conceptual coordinates. (shrink)

This is a review essay of Christopher Kutz's Complicity: Ethics and Law for a Collective Age, and Jonathan Bass's Stay The Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals. Topics addressed include the nature of collective intentions and actions, the possibility of collective guilt, the moral responsibility of individuals in the context of collective actions.

In discussions of religious disagreement, some epistemologists have suggested that religious disagreement is distinctive. More specifically, they have argued that religious disagreement has certain features which make it possible for theists to resist conciliatory arguments that they must adjust their religious beliefs in response to finding that peers disagree with them. I consider what I take to be the two most prominent features which are claimed to make religious disagreement distinct: religious evidence and evaluative standards in religious contexts. I (...) argue that these two features fail to distinguish religious disagreement in the ways they have been taken to. However, I show that the view that religious disagreement is not a unique form of disagreement makes religious disagreement less, rather than more, worrisome to the theist who would prefer to rationally remain steadfast in her religious beliefs. (shrink)

We provide a novel defense of the possibility of level-splitting beliefs and use this defense to show that the steadfast response to peer disagreement is not, as it is often claimed to be, unnecessarily dogmatic. To provide this defense, a neglected form of moral disagreement is analysed. Within the context of this particular kind of moral disagreement, a similarly neglected form of level-splitting belief is identified and then defended from critics of the rationality of level-splitting beliefs. The chapter concludes (...) by showing that proponents of the steadfast response to peer disagreement can adopt this form of level-splitting belief in the context of these moral disagreements while exemplifying intellectual humility, rather than dogmatism. (shrink)

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

: This response to the preceding five articles highlights the stubborn persistence of the philosophical perplexities surrounding commodification in the realm of medicine and biotechnology.

Volume 19, Issue 10, October 2019, Page W14-W17.

In Good White People: The Problem with Middle-Class White Anti-Racism, Shannon Sullivan considers: "What can white people do to help end racial injustice?". As one response to this question, Sullivan argues that prescribing "white shame" and "white guilt" is useless, since promoting these ideas leads to self-hate and inaction on the part of white people. In this paper, I agree with Sullivan, but for different reasons. I argue that assuming that white people can feel ashamed simply about being white (...) within our current society is unfounded. I will maintain that the project of "promoting white shame" is fraught to begin with, and show the significance of this finding for conversations about white people's role in... (shrink)

I argue that Iris Marion Young’s concept of political responsibility is well suited for transnational feminism analyses. Young’s work reveals the intersections of ethical, social, and political theory; her model of political responsibility articulates a view of shared social and political responsibility for the structural conditions of exploitation and domination. Young’s theory of political responsibility provides an account that views responsibility for social injustice as both deeply personal, and shared. She argues that we can only discharge our political responsibility by (...) engaging with others in collective actions that seek to change unjust situation and institutions. I argue that Young’s model of political responsibility, because of its focus on structural injustice, provides a more nuanced account of global justice than either a human rights framework, or a cosmopolitan framework. Because Young’s theory of political responsibility focuses on structural injustice we can use it to analyze inequalities and asymmetries of power with respect to gender and in terms of structural injustice. (shrink)

I argue that Iris Marion Young’s concept of political responsibility is well suited for transnational feminism analyses. Young’s work reveals the intersections of ethical, social, and political theory; her model of political responsibility articulates a view of shared social and political responsibility for the structural conditions of exploitation and domination. Young’s theory of political responsibility provides an account that views responsibility for social injustice as both deeply personal, and shared. She argues that we can only discharge our political responsibility by (...) engaging with others in collective actions that seek to change unjust situation and institutions. I argue that Young’s model of political responsibility, because of its focus on structural injustice, provides a more nuanced account of global justice than either a human rights framework, or a cosmopolitan framework. Because Young’s theory of political responsibility focuses on structural injustice we can use it to analyze inequalities and asymmetries of power with respect to gender and in terms of structural injustice. (shrink)

Death Talk asks why, when our society has rejected euthanasia for over two thousand years, are we now considering legalizing it? Has euthanasia been promoted by deliberately confusing it with other ethically acceptable acts? What is the relation between pain relief treatments that could shorten life and euthanasia? How do journalistic values and media ethics affect the public's perception of euthanasia? What impact would the legalization of euthanasia have on concepts of human rights, human responsibilities, and human ethics? Can we (...) imagine teaching young physicians how to put their patients to death? There are vast ethical, legal, and social differences between natural death and euthanasia. In Death Talk, Margaret Somerville argues that legalizing euthanasia would cause irreparable harm to society's value of respect for human life, which in secular societies is carried primarily by the institutions of law and medicine. Death has always been a central focus of the discussion that we engage in as individuals and as a society in searching for meaning in life. Moreover, we accommodate the inevitable reality of death into the living of our lives by discussing it, that is, through "death talk." Until the last twenty years this discussion occurred largely as part of the practice of organized religion. Today, in industrialized western societies, the euthanasia debate provides a context for such discussion and is part of the search for a new societal-cultural paradigm. Seeking to balance the "death talk" articulated in the euthanasia debate with "life talk," Somerville identifies the very serious harms for individuals and society that would result from accepting euthanasia. A sense of the unfolding euthanasia debate is captured through the inclusion of Somerville's responses to or commentaries on several other authors' contributions. (shrink)

The political shift toward an economic liberalism in many developed market economies, emphasizing the importance of the marketplace rather than government intervention in the economy and society (Dorman, Systematic Occupational Health and Safety Management: Perspectives on an International Development, 2000; Tombs, Policy and Practice in Health and Safety 3(1): 24-25, 2005; Walters, Policy and Practice in Health and Safety 03(2):3-19, 2005), featured a prominent discourse centered on the need for business flexibility and competitiveness in a global economy (Dorman, 2000; Tombs, (...) 2005). Alongside these developments was an increasing pressure for corporate social responsibility (CSR). The business case for CSR - that corporations would benefit from voluntarily being socially responsible — was increasingly promoted by governments and corporations as part of the justification for self-regulation. The aim of the article is to examine more closely the proposition that self-regulation is effective, with particular reference to the business case for workplace equality and safety. Based on a comprehensive literature review and documentary analysis, it was found that current predominant management discourse and practice focusing on diversity and safety management systems (OHSMS) resonate well with a government and corporate preference for the business case and self-regulation. However, the centrality of individual rather than organizational factors in diversity and OHSMS means that systemic discrimination and inherent workplace hazards are downplayed, making it less likely that employers will initiate structural remedies needed for real change. Thus, reliance on the business case in the argument for self-regulation is problematic. In terms of government policy and management practice, the business case needs to be supplemented by strong, proactive legislation, and worker involvement. (shrink)

Though much progress has been made on inclusion of non-pregnant women in research, thoughtful discussion about including pregnant women has lagged behind. We outline resulting knowledge gaps and their costs and then highlight four reasons why ethically we are obliged to confront the challenges of including pregnant women in clinical research. These are: the need for effective treatment for women during pregnancy, fetal safety, harm from the reticence to prescribe potentially beneficial medication, and the broader issues of justice and access (...) to benefits of research participation. Going forward requires shifting the burden of justification from inclusion to exclusion and developing an adequate ethical framework that specifies suitable justifications for excluding pregnant women from research. (shrink)

In recent years, the free market position has been gaining strength. In this book, Radin provides a nuanced response to its sweeping generalization.