This is a response to criticism by Rev. Martin Rhonheimer of a critique by Rev. Benedict Guevin of Rhonheimer’s book Vital Conflicts. Rhonheimer insists that Guevin both misunderstood and misrepresented his action theory. Rhonheimer claims that his understanding of “direct” versus “indirect” killing, as well his use of “intention” finds its warrant in the writings of Popes John Paul II and Pius XII. Having examined Rhonheimer’s magisterial sources in detail, Guevin concludes that Rhonheimer’s claim that the (...) object of the moral act is found essentially in the “intention,” that is, in what one intends to do by what one is doing, is baseless. Such a claim is idiosyncratic. The writings of John Paul II and Pius XII are clearly at odds with both Rhonheimer’s analysis and his conclusions. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.4 (Winter 2011): 679–688. (shrink)

The author explores whether Catholic hospitals should be required by law to perform augmentation mammaplasty on male-to-female transsexuals. The case involves a male-to-female transsexual who presented at a Catholic hospital for breast augmentation surgery. The hospital refused and was sued on the basis of aviolation of the Unruh Civil Rights Act. The hospital formulated a policy on how to deal with such cases in the future. It determined that the same standards thatapply to any woman be applied here, since the (...) mammaplasty was not part of the actual transgender surgery. The author argues that augmentation mammaplastyis part of the transgendering process and illicit for a Catholic hospital to perform. Legislation protecting Catholic hospitals from having to perform abortions shouldbe expanded to include transsexual reassignment surgery in all of its stages. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 9.3 (Autumn 2009): 453–458. (shrink)

The question of whether it is permissible to deactivate a pacemaker at the end of life has been addressed in medical journals but rarely in ethics journals. The ethics of pacemaker deactivation is especially challenging because of the disparate ways the devices are viewed by both medical professionals and patients. Some consider pacemakers replacement therapy, and some consider them substitutive therapy. If they are the former, then deactivation would not be permitted, since a replacement device is considered a part of (...) the body, akin to a new heart. Some ask whether pacemakers are natural or artificial; if pacemakers are artificial, deactivation would be permissible. Another factor is whether a patient is pacemaker dependent. Some medical experts decide the issue of deactivation on the basis of patient autonomy. Others weigh in on whether pacemakers are ordinary or extraordinary means of care. This paper examines each proposal and concludes tentatively that pacemaker deactivation is not permissible at the end of life. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 15.1 : 39–51. (shrink)

Body identity integrity disorder is experienced by a small percentage of the population, whose idea of how they should look does not match their actual physical form. The most common manifestation of BIID is the desire to have a specific limb amputated. In a small number of cases, the desire is not for the removal of a limb, but to be blind or paralyzed. There has been a lot of discussion regarding the possible physiological, neurological, or psychological etiologies of BIID. (...) This paper examines the ethical implications of the different approaches to help those with BIID. These approaches and the dilemma that doctors face in cases of BIID are the subject of the final section, which offers some tentative ethical conclusions regarding this disturbing disorder. (shrink)

The purpose of the Instruction Dignitas personae, issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is not only to reaffirm the validity of the teaching laid out in Donum vitae (1987), with regard to both the principles on which it is based and the moral evaluations which it expresses, but to add needed clarification on reproductive technologies in the light of more recent developments. In addition to the reproductive technologies discussed in Dignitas personae, namely, homologous and heterologous artificial (...) insemination, in vitro fertilization, and intracytoplasmic sperm injection, the author also discusses other reproductive technologies, not covered by the Instruction, such as gamete intrafallopian transfer, zygote intrafallopian transfer, tubal embryo transfer, and pronuclear-stage embryo transfer. After analyzing each of these the author offers a general ethical evaluation. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.1 (Spring 2010): 51–59. (shrink)

El artículo trata del papel hermenéutico de Hch 9,4 en las enarrationes agustinianas, señalando que, por el lugar y función de esta obra, ese texto bíblico es una herramienta hermenéutica útil para entender toda la exposición agustiniana de los salmos.

In his book Vital Conflicts in Medical Ethics: A Virtue Approach to Craniotomy and Tubal Pregnancies, Martin Rhonheimer offers a virtue approach to vital conflicts in medical ethics. These vital conflicts are those medical situations involving pregnancy in which, if nothing is done, both the mother and her child will die. When analyzed by means of his understanding of the virtue of justice, Rhonheimer concludes that the so-called direct killing of children in the womb or in the fallopian tube is (...) permissible since the child’s death is neither a means to saving the mother’s life nor an end sought for itself and is, therefore, not unjust. Because such a death is not unjust, it is also not a moral evil since only an unjust death can be called a moral evil. The author offers a critique of both his understanding of justice and what constitutes the “object” of the moral act. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.3 : 471–480. (shrink)

The decades following the Second Vatican Council witnessed Catholic theology's break from classicism. Deductive, classical theology was replaced by an empirical, historically minded theology. The result was moral confusion and intellectual controversy whose effects are still felt by the Church. Benedict Ashely agreed that some revision in moral theology was necessary after Vatican II to formulate and integrate the mysteries of the Catholic faith. The question was how such teachings could be reformulated while preserving their substantive content. Ashley presents (...) a method of theological reflection that challenges the subjectivity, relationality, and language of historical mindedness with a tradition focusing on Scripture, the Magisterium, sound natural science, and a considered relationship between subjectivity and objectivity. This volume also contains commentary by four distinguished scholars: Matthew McWhorter provides an intellectual biography of Ashley, examining the development of this thought before and after Vatican II. Rev. Cajetan Cuddy, OP, reviews Ashley's philosophical theology in its principles, especially as grounded in natural law philosophy. Matthew Minerd assesses Ashley's approach to the authority of the Catholic Magisterium, the papacy, and the formation of conscience. Rev. Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, OP, evaluates Ashley's application of his moral theology to beginning- and end-of-life decision-making. (shrink)

This paper initiates the reverse mathematics of social choice theory, studying Arrow's impossibility theorem and related results including Fishburn's possibility theorem and the Kirman–Sondermann theorem within the framework of reverse mathematics. We formalise fundamental notions of social choice theory in second-order arithmetic, yielding a definition of countable society which is tractable in RCA0. We then show that the Kirman–Sondermann analysis of social welfare functions can be carried out in RCA0. This approach yields a proof of Arrow's theorem in RCA0, and (...) thus in PRA, since Arrow's theorem can be formalised as a Π01 sentence. Finally we show that Fishburn's possibility theorem for countable societies is equivalent to ACA0 over RCA0. (shrink)

Reverse mathematics is a program in mathematical logic that seeks to give precise answers to the question of which axioms are necessary in order to prove theorems of "ordinary mathematics": roughly speaking, those concerning structures that are either themselves countable, or which can be represented by countable "codes". This includes many fundamental theorems of real, complex, and functional analysis, countable algebra, countable infinitary combinatorics, descriptive set theory, and mathematical logic. This entry aims to give the reader a broad introduction to (...) the history, methodology, and results of the reverse mathematics program, with a particular focus on its connections to foundational programs such as finitism, constructivism, and predicativism. (shrink)

Short overview of the From Small Beginnings Project and its relevance for resisting eugenics in contemporary society.

Issues of methodology are central to the philosophy of moral progress. However, the idea that effective moral methodology, as well as being instrumental to progress, might also constitute progress has not been adequately explored. This paper will critically assess the merits of this idea – what I call ‘pure proceduralism about moral progress’ – taking Philip Kitcher's recent theory of ‘democratic contractualism’ (2021) as a test case. An epistemology of pure procedural moral progress will be sketched: namely, a naturalised epistemology (...) of paradigmatic instances of moral progress. Assuming an ideal procedure exists and has been at least approximately instantiated (an empirical claim), we learn about its form by studying paradigms of historical moral progress. From this epistemological method will be derived theoretical constraints on what can count as a theory of moral progress per se: it must capture the core semantic constraints on the term ‘moral progress,’ those features without which we would not recognise a change as moral progress. While this poses a tougher challenge for pure proceduralism than for more traditional approaches to moral methodology, it will be concluded that the potential of pure proceduralism as a viable metaethics of moral progress remains an exciting open question. (shrink)

The historical debate of scientific realism portrays a monumental sign of science-a way of critiquing philosophy. At first sight, this centrepiece of scientific realism could line up against the no-miracles argument and the pessimistic meta-induction because, by means of the no-miracles assumption, fundamental theories in science would be the fine manifestation of reality as well as are most likely to be the truth. Nonetheless, a means to an end of the pessimistic meta-induction arguably states the anti-realistic position-since scientific speculations are (...) not always plausible to be the ultimate truth vis-à-vis mature hypotheses of science in history. By and large, I have herein put forward a systemic meaning for realism: an inspection of unseen objects in the world, which are broken free from the human mind. However, I will demonstrate the no-miracles argument in the vicinity of realism, whilst the pessimistic meta-induction lies towards anti-realism. In the bargain, I will examine structural realism in response to this scientific dichotomy. Briefly, this research article is, apparently, bound-up with a very limited account of relevancies; ergo, it would be recommended to further research on this controversy. (shrink)

This article asks about the conditions of a sociological operationalization of the capability approach developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. Raising the question of freedom and social opportunities, the capability approach has so far mainly been discussed by economists and philosophers. In order to adopt this approach for a sociological and pragmatist perspective, it engages with methodological and theoretical issues. Whereas capabilities have until now mainly been studied within quantitative frameworks, the author opts for a qualitative method of inquiry (...) that draws on a pragmatist and configurational approach. Such a shift towards qualitative inquiry is a key condition for a better sociological understanding of notions like freedom and opportunities that stand at the core of the capability approach. (shrink)

The increasing pressure from different facets of society exerted on multinational companies to become more philanthropic and claim ownership of their impacts is now becoming a standard practice. Although research in corporate social responsibility has arguably been recent, the application of activities taking a voluntary form from MNCs seem to vary reflecting a plethora of factors, particularly one obvious being the backwater local communities of developing countries where most of the natural extraction projects are located. This chapter examines views of (...) two Papua New Guinea local communities hosting large-scale mining operations and explains the demands arising from situational relativities, which are becoming too conspicuous for mine developers not to ignore. The research undertaken with several assertions highlights the perceived imperativeness allowing companies to integrate the CSR into the essential management pursuits of running mines in PNG. (shrink)

Offers an analysis of three strongly contrasting primitive civilizations, showing how behavior is influenced by custom and tradition.