The Catholic Church proscribes methods of birth control other than sexual abstinence. Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recognizes abstinence as an acceptable method of birth control in research studies, some pharmaceutical companies mandate the use of artificial contraceptive techniques to avoid pregnancy as a condition for participation in their studies. These requirements are unacceptable at Catholic health care institutions, leading to conflicts among institutional review boards, clinical investigators, and sponsors. Subjects may feel coerced by such mandates to (...) adopt contraceptive techniques inconsistent with their personal situation and beliefs; women committed to celibacy or who engage exclusively in non-heterosexual activities are negatively impacted. We propose principles to insure informed consent to safeguard the rights of research subjects at Catholic institutions while mitigating this ethical conflict. At the same time, our proposal respects the interests of pharmaceutical research agencies and Catholic moral precepts, and fully abides by regulatory guidance. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Having Children: Philosophical and Legal Reflections on Parenthood. Edited by Onora O'Neill and William Ruddick.

The behavioral sciences have flourished by studying how traditional and/or rational behavior has been governed throughout most of human history by relatively well-informed individual and social learning. In the online age, however, social phenomena can occur with unprecedented scale and unpredictability, and individuals have access to social connections never before possible. Similarly, behavioral scientists now have access to “big data” sets – those from Twitter and Facebook, for example – that did not exist a few years ago. Studies of human (...) dynamics based on these data sets are novel and exciting but, if not placed in context, can foster the misconception that mass-scale online behavior is all we need to understand, for example, how humans make decisions. To overcome that misconception, we draw on the field of discrete-choice theory to create a multiscale comparative “map” that, like a principal-components representation, captures the essence of decision making along two axes: aneast–westdimension that represents the degree to which an agent makes a decision independently versus one that is socially influenced, and anorth–south dimensionthat represents the degree to which there is transparency in the payoffs and risks associated with the decisions agents make. We divide the map into quadrants, each of which features a signature behavioral pattern. When taken together, the map and its signatures provide an easily understood empirical framework for evaluating how modern collective behavior may be changing in the digital age, including whether behavior is becoming more individualistic, as people seek out exactly what they want, or more social, as people become more inextricably linked, even “herdlike,” in their decision making. We believe the map will lead to many new testable hypotheses concerning human behavior as well as to similar applications throughout the social sciences. (shrink)

Proponents of ecological restoration view the practice as a means of both repairing damage done to ecosystems by humans and creating an avenue to re-establish respectful and cooperative human-environment relationships. One debate affecting ecological restoration focuses on the place of 'exotic' species in restored ecosystems. Though popular, campaigns against exotics have been criticized for their troubling rhetorical parallels with nativism aimed at human immigrants. I point to some of the reasons why this critique of nativism persists, despite protests that no (...) xenophobic intent is evident, emphasizing the intimacy between social metaphors and claims about exotic nature. Language is but one facet of an entanglement of nature and society that ecological restoration strives to take seriously; however, restoration practice remains ambivalent toward this dichotomy permitting a longing for lost community purity that is embraced in nativism. Regarding defenses of nativism, I point out limitations of attempts to reframe the issue from a reactionary rejection of the foreign Other toward an argument for protecting communities from a process akin to 'cultural imperialism'. (shrink)

The behavioral sciences have flourished by studying how traditional and/or rational behavior has been governed throughout most of human history by relatively well-informed individual and social learning. In the online age, however, social phenomena can occur with unprecedented scale and unpredictability, and individuals have access to social connections never before possible. Similarly, behavioral scientists now have access to “big data” sets – those from Twitter and Facebook, for example – that did not exist a few years ago. Studies of human (...) dynamics based on these data sets are novel and exciting but, if not placed in context, can foster the misconception that mass-scale online behavior is all we need to understand, for example, how humans make decisions. To overcome that misconception, we draw on the field of discrete-choice theory to create a multiscale comparative “map” that, like a principal-components representation, captures the essence of decision making along two axes: aneast–westdimension that represents the degree to which an agent makes a decision independently versus one that is socially influenced, and anorth–south dimensionthat represents the degree to which there is transparency in the payoffs and risks associated with the decisions agents make. We divide the map into quadrants, each of which features a signature behavioral pattern. When taken together, the map and its signatures provide an easily understood empirical framework for evaluating how modern collective behavior may be changing in the digital age, including whether behavior is becoming more individualistic, as people seek out exactly what they want, or more social, as people become more inextricably linked, even “herdlike,” in their decision making. We believe the map will lead to many new testable hypotheses concerning human behavior as well as to similar applications throughout the social sciences. (shrink)

"The main and original contribution of this volume is to offer a discussion of teleology through the prism of religion, philosophy and history. The goal is to incorporate teleology within discussions across these three disciplines rather than restrict it to one as is customarily the case. The chapters cover a wide range of topics, from individual teleologies to collective ones; ideas put forward by the French aristocrat Arthur de Gobineau and the Scottish philosopher David Hume, by the Anglican theologian and (...) founder of Methodism, John Wesley, and the English naturalist Charles Darwin; it criss-crosses intellectually and conceptually from a discussion of morality to that of the sacralisation of politics"--. (shrink)

This paper looks at the languages of empowerment and control as they are expressed by authors writing about “indigenous knowledge.” We performed a content analysis on CIKARD News, a newsletter dealing with the concept of indigenous knowledge. This concept has become increasingly prominent in the discourse of alternative development, addressing issues of ecological sustainability and the empowerment of the rural poor. However, mediated by institutions that perpetuate global and local power asymmetries, the empowering potential of indigenous knowledge may be bypassed. (...) Instead, officials, researchers, and practitioners may utilize this knowledge for their own perceived ends, however good their intentions. In addition, there is already evidence that an indigenous knowledge approach is seen by major agencies as beneficial for integrating poorer populations into the global economy. Our analysis suggests that tensions persist among and within the writings of these authors between the desire to empower and the tendency for development to control rural populations. (shrink)

Humanist sociologists are activists rooted in the reality of history and change and guided by a concern for the 'real life' problems of equality, peace, and social justice. They view people as active shapers of social life, capable of creating societies in which everyone's potential can unfold. Alfred McClung Lee introduces this volume with 'Sociology: Humanist and Scientific' and develops the theme that a sociology that is humanist is also scientific. The other nine selections are grouped into four parts: 'The (...) Individual and Social Life;' 'Social Institutions: Technology, Science, and Formal Organization;' 'Political Structures: Issues of Justice and Equality;' and 'Methodological Critiques and Counterproposals.'. (shrink)

Critics have argued that utilitarians, by the very nature of the system they endorse, cannot maintain their integrity; and that they cannot, in the end, be individuals of the sort human beings want to be. In my dissertation I explore this criticism and argue that utilitarianism need not endanger integrity, that it need not undercut autonomy, and that it need not deny individuality of any sort. ;Bernard Williams is the major proponent of this criticism. Williams argues that a utilitarian cannot (...) maintain the commitment to projects and principles which is necessary for a person to be an individual. He cannot have what Williams calls "ground projects," projects which are so central to him that they are what give point to his life. The reasons Williams gives for this are varied, and the connections between his various criticisms are not always clear. In the thesis I first analyze the arguments Williams uses against utilitarianism. I show that Williams' arguments that a utilitarian cannot have ground projects depends on a false assumption about the emotional attachment required for a person to be committed to his projects in a way that individuates. I argue that Williams demands an emotional attachment that blinds one to rational consideration, in a way that we will find unacceptable. ;Williams offers an account of individuality which claims that utilitarianism does not allow the proper sort of emotional attachment to projects because it is too necessarily rational a system. W. D. Falk, on the contrary, offers a theory which if correct will show utilitarianism to be an insufficiently rational system. Falk argues that any moral system which declares that there are universal moral rules by which all people's behavior should be regulated undercuts the autonomy of the agents to whom it dictates. If one is to be autonomous, one must do only what one has reason to do. An agent has reason to do something only if he would be motivated to do it upon reflection. If utilitarianism does not motivate some particular agent, that agent, in order to preserve rationality and autonomy, ought not to follow utilitarianism. ;In response to these criticisms I suggest a more plausible notion of individuality which requires neither irrational emotional attachment nor Falk's subjective standard of rational choice. I then advocate a modified form of utilitarianism which does not pose the dangers to individuality which traditional forms of utilitarianism may. In this version, we broaden the notion of utility so that our evaluative beliefs are of special importance in our determination of what things have utility. When utility-maximization is construed in this way it does not pose special dangers for individuality. (shrink)

Hegel introduced the Phenomenology of Mind as a work on the problem of knowledge. In the first chapter, entitled “Sense Certainty, or the This and Meaning,” he concluded that knowledge cannot consist of an immediate awareness of particulars ). The tradition discusses sense certainty in terms of this failure of immediate knowledge without, however, specifically addressing the problem of reference. Yet reference is distinct from knowledge in the sense that while there can be no knowledge of objects without reference, there (...) may be reference without knowledge. If that is the case, then the failure of immediate knowledge does not entitle us to conclude anything about the success or failure of reference. It is not surprising, then, that a few scholars have begun to examine sense certainty primarily as a thesis about reference. (shrink)

Boredom: A History of Western Philosophical Perspectives The essayist Joseph Epstein has remarked, "Boredom is after all part of consciousness, and about consciousness the neurologists still have much less to tell us than do the poets and the philosophers." Although not a major topic for Western philosophers, some important Western philosophers have spoken of it, … Continue reading Boredom →.

The “New Natural Law” Theory (NNL) of Germain Grisez, John Finnis, Joseph Boyle, and their collaborators offers a distinctive account of intentional action, which underlies a moral theory that aims to justify many aspects of traditional morality and Catholic doctrine. -/- In fact, we show that the NNL is committed to premises that entail the permissibility of many actions that are irreconcilable with traditional morality and Catholic doctrine, such as elective abortions. These consequences follow principally from two aspects of (...) the NNL. The first aspect is its distinctive version of the planning theory of intention, in which adopting the 'first-person perspective' of an agent is a sufficient, and not merely necessary, condition for determining the nature of his intentional action; this planning theory rests upon an implicitly Cartesian conception of human behavior, in which behavior chosen by an agent has no intrinsic “intentionalness” apart from what he confers upon it as part of his plan. The second aspect is the NNL's distinctive account of basic human goods' incommensurability, according to which there is no common factor shared by basic human goods that allows them to be comparatively ranked in any way that directs practical deliberation. -/- The entailments of these two aspects of the NNL, we argue, amount to a reductio ad absurdum. Pace the proponents of the NNL account, we sketch an alternative hylomorphic conception of intentional action that avoids untoward moral implications by grounding human agency in the exercise of basic powers that are either (a) essential constituents of human nature or (b) acquired through participation in social practices. This conception of intentional action provides a stronger foundation for natural law theory. (shrink)

In Intention and her subsequent essays that addressed human action, Elizabeth Anscombe made signal contributions to the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition, and to western philosophy more broadly. The new natural law theory of Germain Grisez, John Finnis, Joseph Boyle, and their collaborators mistakenly claims to be consonant with Anscombe’s work. A central reason for this misappropriation lies in the failure to understand the ways in which Anscombe does and does not deploy a “first-person perspective” in analyzing intentional action. Far from supporting (...) the new natural law, Anscombe’s work, rightly understood, provides arguments for rejecting it. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.1 : 47–56. (shrink)

O'Brien, Roderick Among the treasures at the Congregational Archives of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart in North Sydney is a booklet, a hymnal: a collection of hymns and sacred songs attributed to Fr Julian Tenison Woods.1 The purpose of this short article is to introduce one of those hymns, and provide some information about poetry and songs in Woods's life and mission. I am grateful to the archivist for making this booklet available. Introducing this (...) particular hymn, 'Longing to Go', also gives us some insight into Woods's spirituality regarding death and regarding mission. (shrink)

There was a significant monetary cost associated with establishing Catholicism in colonial Western Australia. The bishops and clergy funded the development of the local Catholic Church through donations from European benefactors, offerings from the congregation, and sponsorship from the Colonial and British Governments. As donations from Europe were variable and the resident Catholic population were largely poor, the government grants were the most reliable income for the Diocese of Perth. The government issued grants to support the establishment of congregations, schools, (...) and social welfare institutions. The development of congregations in new settlements was the Catholic Church's core ministry and the government issued stipends to Catholic chaplains to administer spiritual care to settlers and convicts in particular districts. Government grants were based on the census results and the Catholic Church was required to establish local church congregations and recruit clergy, and demonstrate an ability to contribute towards the maintenance of both. From 1852 to 1886, Bishops Joseph Serra, Rosendo Salvado and Martin Griver took charge of establishing congregations, managing clergy and lobbying the governors and other civil officials to fund colonial chaplaincies. The government also expected that the chaplains would promote moral and social order among the ex-convicts transported from Britain. (shrink)

There is a rather disturbing argument that it is wrong for us ever to smile and be glad, in light of our knowledge of horrors happening everywhere all the time. The paper's primary aim is to respond to the challenge this argument presents and to see what can be said for being happy in spite of it. Drawing from the works of Tolstoy, Joseph Butler, and others, the author develops two or three lines of response to the argument against (...) happiness. One line of response makes heavy use of what human nature is like and what some of our limitations are. The second line of response considers the consequences of the fact that we naturallycease to be moved by things we are used to. The third line explores the idea that it is justifiable to be happy in the midst of suffering if you yourself are sufferingtoo. The author believes that these lines of argument may answer to some degree the argument against happiness. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Having Children: Philosophical and Legal Reflections on Parenthood. Edited by Onora O'Neill and William Ruddick.

Each contributor to this book has used personal experience as the basis from which to frame his individual sociological perspectives. Because they have personalized their work, their accounts are real, and recognizable as having come from 'real' persons, about 'real' experiences. There are no objectively-distanced disembodied third person entities in these accounts. These writers are actual people whose stories will make you laugh, cry, think, and want to know more.

First, we shall examine theoretical similarities and differences between two ethics: that of a Christian-Aristotelian Ethics as commented upon by Aquinas and Augustine and that of a Christian-Aristotelian Ethics as developed by Joseph Fletcher in his Situation Ethics. The deep similarity is that both ethics find that the highest virtue is that of love. The key difference is that for a Christian-Aristotelian Ethics developed by Aquinas and Augustine there are some actions and feelings that are evil in themselves and (...) which have no Golden Mean whereas for a Christian-Aristotelian Ethics as developed by Fletcher there are no actions which are evil in themselves. This question of whether there are actions evil in themselves is the primary reason for writing this paper. Second, we shall examine (a) the positive practice of the virtues, arguing that there is little to no practical difference between a Christian-Aristotelian ethics as developed by Aquinas and Augustine and a Christian-Aristotelian situation ethics as developed by Fletcher in the positive practice of the virtues; and we shall examine (b) the practical differences between these two ethics in deciding whether there are some actions that are evil in themselves by reflecting upon the four conditions of the principle of the double effect. The paper will conclude by favoring a Christian-Aristotelian Ethics as developed by Aquinas and Augustine. Keywords: Christian-Aristotelian Ethics, Aquinas, Augustine, Joseph Fletcher. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

This notice answers two long-running questions of authorship. The first part of the notice addresses the famous question “Utrum Aristoteles sit salvatus” that survives in the manuscript Città del Vaticano, BAV, Cod. Vat. lat. 1012, a miscellany of primarily Franciscan texts. On the basis of contextual, textual and thematic parallels, the authorship of the question should be ascribed to Hugh of Neufchâteau, OFM. The second part considers the case of the Evidentiae contra Durandum, whose author, known as Durandellus, Joseph (...) Koch identified with a certain Nicolaus Medensis in 1927. A re-examination of Koch’s reasoning makes this attribution doubtful, and the witness of the original Reportatio of William of Brienne, OFM, shows that the Dominican theologian Durand of Aurillac is more likely the author of the Evidentiae. (shrink)

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

O'Brien & Opie's admirably sharp hypothesis gains some of its force by ignoring distinctions in murky areas. I attempt to agitate the waters by suggesting that process and vehicle theories are not so different, that classicism can support a vehicle theory, and that several of the key concepts underlying their theory are less clear than depicted. The connection to information I find especially tenuous. Finally, I address the implications of their theory for unconscious thought.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 315-318 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Contemplation et Dialogue: Quelques Exemples de Dialogue Entre Spiritualitiés Après le Concile Vatican II The Ground We Share: Everyday Practice, Buddhist and Christian Contemplation et Dialogue: Quelques Exemples de Dialogue Entre Spiritualitiés Après le Concile Vatican II. By Katrin Amell. Studia Missionalia Upsaliensia LXX. Uppsala: The Swedish Institute of Missionary Research, 1998. 245 pp. ISBN 91-85424-50-1. The Ground (...) We Share: Everyday Practice, Buddhist and Christian. By Robert Aitken and David Steindl-Rast. Edited by Nelson Foster. Boston and London: Shambala, 1996. xviii + 233 pp. ISBN 1-57062-219-1. $15.00. Here are two meritorious and well-produced works devoted to the dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity. They also have in common a certain desultoriness which left me reflecting on the limits of the rhetoric of 'dialogue.' Having taken over from 'liberation' as a theological buzzword, 'dialogue' seems by now to have exhausted its usefulness. William James remarked that everything genuine will somewhere become a sham. Lip service to a vague ideal of dialogue becomes a substitute for the unmet challenge of Buddhist-Christian thought, and the less the dialogue is practiced the more its importance is verbally celebrated. The retention of the word 'dialogue' may even serve to keep the religious other at a comfortable distance: it is more reassuring to say, "Of course we are in dialogue with the Buddhists" than to say "We are facing up to the challenge Buddhist thought poses to Christian theology," for in the former statement the Buddhists remain conveniently located others, sitting across the table, rather than a troublesome, potentially subversive presence within our own intellectual world. [End Page 315]In their submission to the recent Roman synod of Asian bishops, the Japanese bishops made much of their commitment to interreligious dialogue, and this was acclaimed with enthusiasm. But the impression left by Karin Amell's book (a doctoral thesis in missiology) is that not very much is going on in this area in Japan, the country seen as "the promised land of dialogue" after Vatican II (p. 119). "One has the impression that it is an activity for a few specialists" (p. 145), leaving the ordinary faithful largely untouched. Amell apparently does not read Japanese, so there may be much that she has missed, yet for my part I can think of nothing to add to the factual content of her account. For the spiritual side of the encounter she focuses on three Japanese pioneers, now in their seventies (pp. 150-191): Kadowaki Kakichi, SJ, Okumura Ichiro, OCD, and Oshida Shigeto, OP. To what extent these men have succeeded in creating a widespread Catholic Zen culture remains unclear, but Amell believes the "dialogue of religious experience" is the most widespread form of Buddhist-Catholic interaction in Japan (p. 146). As to scholarship, which is not Amell's direct concern, one has the impression that everyone is too busy with church and university affairs to devote their time to this. The scholarly labors of Heinrich Dumoulin, for example, have not been continued by anyone else. Despite the work of a powerful Catholic foundation, the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture (p. 141), Buddhism does not seem to excite Catholic intellectuals in Japan. Japanese Catholics are a small community, numbering about half a million. But given the high number of theologians, clergy and religious (p. 137), one would expect a more intensive interaction with local religious traditions. Instead the focus of theological interest remains fixed on Western sources. It is not so much that the situation of a small church in the midst of secularized-polytheistic-Buddhist Japan fails to give food for thought as that people seem afraid to think out its implications. Those engaged in contemplative sharing with Buddhists seem to avoid intellectual issues. Amell is uneasy with the insistence on intuition and the latent anti-intellectualism she finds in the intermonastic dialogue (discussed in the first half... (shrink)

This collection of essays is a critical document in Continental philosophy, reflecting its recent history, its present state, and its debt to Calvin O. Schrag. It begins with an overview of philosophy's role and responsibility or "task" and of Schrag's contributions to it, written from the perspective of a resolute defender of the phenomenological tradition that Schrag's work has extended and reconfigured. The essays are organized around the four conceptual figures widely considered Schrag's most significant and original philosophical achievements: transversal (...) rationality, the self after post-modernity, the fourth cultural value sphere, and communication praxis. The authors focus on topics ranging from Cartesian rationality to Foucauldian rational relativism; from transcendence in relation to the self to the Schragean self's connections with discourse, action, and community; from religion's disruptive presence in contemporary philosophy to recent developments in the philosophy of language. (shrink)

It would surely have been better to entitle this work ‘Reflexions on ethical theories’, for it cannot in any true sense of the word be called a study, a scientific study which entails detailed analysis and positive criticism. In fact Professor Mackinnon presents us with a series of considerations, highly personal and at times indeed penetrating and instructive, on the moral theories of certain British and continental philosophers—of the 19th century utilitarians ; of Kant, Hegel and their followers; of the (...) theologianphilosopher bishop of Durham, Joseph Butler; of Russell, Moore and others. The impression left on one after a careful perusal of the work is that it is no more than an agglomeration of ‘mights’ and ‘perhaps’, never a clear–cut judgment. The chief general defect of the book and the cause of much obscurity is certainly this: the absence of any welldefined distinction between exposé and critique. As often as not one does not know what the opinion of the author is as distinct from his interpretation of the authors he is studying. This defect would seem to be characteristic of a great part of the ethical writing produced by the Scottish and British schools, when they do not reduce ethical theory to anything better than semasiology, to a study of ethical language or linguistic usage. Prof. Mackinnon has certainly not freed himself from the ‘present confused state of moral philosophy in this country’, which he so rightly condemns. I had thought that all philosophers, of whatever ilk, were agreed that ethical science or moral philosophy was nothing more than the study of the human being on its way towards completeness in human being, from an initial embryonic stage, as it were, to the full flowering of human perfection, manifested in perfect human being and perfect human life—a journey or precess directed and controlled by the human subject itself, fully conscious of the end to be achieved and conscious too of the steps or means towards it. I would have thought too that if we are to set up moral science as distinct from mere semasiology, or from psychology, biology, zoology or botany, then all were agreed that we have to do with the domain of free activity, of voluntary conscious activity, which obviously brings with it the order of responsibility and willed subjection to a given objective order of things, that is, of human nature itself and human perfection. I would have taken for granted too that one could study all this field of the free development of the human being towards its ultimate perfection either with a view to the acquisition of knowledge and nothing more, or precisely with a view to being in a position to direct oneself and others towards that fullness of being. That would give us two distinct modes of moral or ethical theory, the speculative or theoretical and the practical and normative, the resolutive and the compositive. I am not so sure that Professor Mackinnon is ready to admit these presupposita. He speaks of the ‘curious and almost silly claim that we are free’, and at the same time he can write about the ‘frankly metaphysical reality of freedom’, or its ‘near–metaphysical reality’. This, in the language of the author, is just another way of proclaiming that human freedom is no more than a myth, lacking all substance and reality. Moral science as distinct from all other sciences, one would think, presupposes that the moral subject be conscious of itself and its activity, that is, that it fully and clearly know that its life and its activity is its own. It must be master of its own actions, and in that sense truly master of its own destiny. Then and only then are we in the order of moral activity. However, we are warned by Professor Mackinnon that “to know that an action is mine is a very strange sort of knowledge, quite different from knowing that an apple or a book is mine: to use the word ‘know’ in such a context is a venture fraught with intellectual peril”. I sincerely think it would have been better had the author denied straight out the possibility, not just of metaphysics, but of ethical theory tout court; for he denies often enough the existence of the moral subject, namely, man freely and deliberately ordaining himself towards human consummation. Had he done that at the outset he would have been spared the trouble of writing his book. All in all, one gets the distinct impression that the author is just not sure of his ground and has no really sound criterion whereby to judge of various ethical theories. In fact the book ends with a big question–mark: ‘If we speak and write thus, do we speak and write sound and fury signifying nothing?’. Reluctantly I am constrained to answer in the affirmative. And I should like to add, so as not to appear completely destructive, but in some way constructive: if, instead of dismissing Aristotle and his followers, ancient and modern, as mere ‘intuitionists’, Professor Mackinnon would only study them seriously he would first of all find out how unjustified is his condemnation of them and then, I venture to suggest, he would acquire a light to guide him surely through the maze of ethical theory with which he grapples aimlessly and would thus be enabled to extricate himself from ‘the present confused state of moral philosophy’ in Britain. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Denying Divinity: Apophasis in the Patristic Christian and Soto Zen Buddhist TraditionsJoseph S. O'LearyDenying Divinity: Apophasis in the Patristic Christian and Soto Zen Buddhist Traditions. By J. P. Williams. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. 249. $65.00.Janet Williams studied patristic theology at Oxford and Soto Zen in Tokyo, in the circle of Nishijima Zenji. In Denying Divinity: Apophasis in the Patristic Christian and Soto Zen Buddhist Traditions, her (...) excellent account of negation and silence in Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor (pp. 64-126) and in Dogen (pp. 126-179) is preceded by surveys of apophasis in earlier Christianity and Buddhism and followed by an eloquent defense of the importance of the twofold apophatic tradition for contemporary theology (pp. 180-228).The initial surveys show a sure-footed scholarly competence that may owe something to the author's experience as an investment banker. Her writing often exhibits a concentrated justesse, as in the two paragraphs on Origen (pp. 26-27). The temptation to forced comparisons between the two traditions is avoided until the concluding chapter, apart from a few unconvincing touches such as this remark: "How similar all this sounds to the 'unsupported thought' and the 'absence of thought-coverings' in the Prajñaparamita literature!"—in reference to Gregory of Nyssa on Abraham's faith, which was "unmixed and pure of any concept" (p. 29). Similarly, to speak of Plotinus' "recoil from—or transcendence of—ontological views" (p. 18) is inappropriately Nāgārjunian; Plotinus held firm, dogmatic views and entertained a host of speculative ones. (Incidentally, it is probably wrong to identify the experience recounted in Enneads IV.8—the relatively frequent ascent of the soul to contemplate the intelligible realm—with the union with the One, evoked in Porphyry, Life of Plotinus 23, a much rarer event [p. 21].)Gregory of Nyssa is nudged in the direction of Buddhism when Williams talks of "the inchoate undermining of the realist ontology he inherited from Plato and Aristotle" (pp. 32-33) and suggests that "the hesitation between ontology and 'disontology,' if it were a little more developed, would become the kind of recoil from [End Page 370] ontological views which we see as characteristic of apophasis" (p. 36). As a very kataphatic theologian in dogmatic debate, Gregory has no aversion to views; his apophasis applies only to certain views of the divine, especially heretical ones that he sees as hubristic. In Mādhyamaka Buddhism, one transcends "views" about anything, but in the Greek Fathers it is only views concerning God that are problematized. The Buddhist transcending of views is oriented to a nondual experience of everyday reality, but in the Fathers it concerns only the divine simplicity, infinity, and transcendence and the mysteries of the eternal generation of the Son and the Incarnation. It is untrue that "there is no explicit apophasis in Gregory" (p. 35): there is plenty of it in Contra Eunomium II, albeit of a simple kind. Nonetheless, Gregory's ontology remains realistic even at the level of divine being. One might query the view expressed by Rowan Williams that, for Gregory, the divine essence becomes "an abstraction and, in a sense, a fantasy" (p. 34).Dionysius is presented as a mobile and open-ended thinker who has been underestimated. He "negates both affirmation and negation, but by offering no third alternative, in a sense affirms them too as the only usable theological resources" (p. 121). Maximus accords with this, although attaining "a finer balance of incarnational christo-centrism over Neoplatonism" (p. 124). The claim that Dionysius "is at pains to distance himself from the Neoplatonist tradition of making transcendence prior or superior to immanence" (p. 216) is overstated, and it misses the degree to which Proclus had already seen the cosmos as pervaded by divine eros (as pointed out long ago by Anders Nygren).The emphasis on a nonduality of transcendence and immanence brings Dionysius into a rapprochement with more of the this-worldly Zen vision. Similarly, the stress on a "shocking activity of emptiness" (p. 141) in Dogen hints at a parallel with the divine ekstasis in Dionysius. But the latter is merely a variant of the Neoplatonic... (shrink)

Interpreting John Paul II's message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in the context of the new scientific discoveries concerning the mitochondrial DNA, one can argue that the human species emerged in Africa some 200,000 years ago. The very problem of the emergence of the human soul in the process of biological evolution represents a subject outside the cognitive competence of science. Attempts can be undertaken to explain this issue in the epistemological perspective of philosophy and theology. In traditional versions (...) of evolutionary theism, God* s interaction in nature was interpreted in causal categories when deterministic dependences were stressed in the process of evolutionary growth. In new proposals, God's presence in an evolving nature has been explained in categories of potentialities and propensities built by God into an evolving Nature. Consequently, in this approach God could be conceived not as a Paleyan designer but rather as a composer unfolding the possibilities hidden in His creation. The future of the evolutionary process depends not only on cosmic physical determinants; it depends to a large extent on the quality of cooperation of human actions with the influence of the Divine Creator. Accordingly, the shape of human culture, as well as the state of moral consciousness of Homo sapiens, should be taken into consideration to discuss the future evolution of the human species. /// Interpretando a mensagem do Papa João Paulo II à Academia Pontifícia das Ciências no contexto das novas descobertas científicas referentes ao DNA mitocondrial, o autor do artigo considera ser possível defender que a espécie humana surgiu em África há cerca de 200 000 anos. Mas o problema da emergência da alma humana no contexto do processo da evolução biológica representa um assunto que está fora da competência cognitiva da ciência. Contudo é possível realizar tentativas no sentido de explicar esta questão na perspectiva epistemológica da filosofia e da teologia. Nas versões tradicionais do teísmo evolutivo, a interacção de Deus com a natureza era interpretada segundo categorias causais quando as dependências deterministicas eram sublinhadas no processo do desenvolvimento evolutivo. No contexto de novas propostas interpretativas, a presença de Deus na ordem evolutiva tem sido explicada em termos das potencialidades e das propensidades induzidas por Deus na Natureza em evolução. Consequentemente, segundo esta abordagem Deus poderia ser concebido não como sábio projectista de que fala William Paley, mas antes como um compositor fazendo vir ao de cima as possibilidades escondidas na sua própria criação. O futuro do processo evolutivo depende não apenas das determinantes físicas do cosmos; ele depende em larga medida da qualidade da cooperação das acções humanas com a influência do Criador. Neste sentido, o artigo defende que a forma da cultura humana, bem como o estado da consciência moral do homo sapiens deve ser tido em consideração em ordem a se poder discutir a evolução futura da espécie humana. (shrink)

Doctors have an ethical and legal duty to respect patient confidentiality. We consider the basis for this duty, looking particularly at the meaning and value of autonomy in health care. Enabling patients to decide how information about them is disclosed is an important element in autonomy and helps patients engage as active partners in their care.Good quality data is, however, essential for research, education, public health monitoring, and for many other activities essential to provision of health care. We discuss whether (...) it is necessary to choose between individual rights and the wider public interest and conclude that this should only rarely be necessary. The paper makes some recommendations on practical steps which could help ensure that good quality information is available for work which benefits society and the public health, while still enabling patients’ autonomy to be respected. (shrink)