For many species that reproduce sexually, how sex is expressed at different points across lifespan is highly contingent and dependent on various environmental factors. For example, in many species of fish, environmental cues can trigger a natural process of sex transition where a female transitions to male. For many species of turtle, incubation temperature influences the likelihood that turtle eggs will hatch males or females. What is the case for Homo sapiens? Is human sex expression influenced by contingent environmental factors (...) like we see in fish and turtles, with whom we share common ancestry and DNA? Our paper explores the current biological science of sex determination and how it applies to philosophical and theological accounts of the human person. We argue that while human sex determination is not susceptible to environmental cues to the same degree we see in other species, there is sufficient variability among the pathways of human sex development to complicate simplistic biological categories of male and female. (shrink)

Zu keiner Zeit hat Potsdam auf die europäische Kultur einen größeren Einfluss ausgeübt als im 18. Jahrhundert, als Friedrich der Große, der Philosophenkönig, den Absolutismus und die Aufklärung miteinander in Einklang zu bringen versuchte. Seit dem Beginn des 18. Jahrhunderts setzte der Aufstieg des Bürgertums in Verbindung mit den neuen Ideen der Aufklärung das höfische Monopol immer stärker unter Druck. Friedrich der Große nahm die Herausforderung an und wollte als König und Bürger der Leserepublik, als Herrscher und Intellektueller, Macht und (...) Geist zueinander führen. Der Hof in Potsdam, die Residenz am Rande der Metropole, wurde zum Ort dieses komplexen und spannungsreichen Rollenspiels, in dem die alte Welt der ererbten Herren und die neue Welt der kritischen Bürger ihre Grenzen auslotete. Das geschah unter den Augen Europas. Denn Friedrich der Große hatte dem Experiment Potsdam von Anfang an einen europäischen Rahmen gegeben. In Potsdam traf sich und auf Potsdam blickte die aufgeklärte Intelligenz aus ganz Europa. Die deutschen Aufklärer betrachteten das Rollenspiel vor den Toren Berlins dagegen skeptischer, weil sie der kulturellen Konstellation misstrauten und der europäische Hof quer lag zum großen Ziel einer deutschen Nationalkultur, für die der Philosoph von Sans-Souci so wenig Sinn zeigte. (shrink)

Critical care of neonatesThe recently published report of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, Critical care decisions in fetal and neonatal medicine, is a valuable contribution to the discussion of decision making in the critical care of neonates. Drawing upon medical evidence, the working party highlights the many practical difficulties arising in neonatal care and by setting out clearly the nature of the ethical and other issues arising in this area of medicine, and their relationship with neonatal development, the resulting report (...) has the potential to lead both to improved practice and to better informed communication between doctors and families when they face difficult decisions about how best to treat very premature babies. Based on medical evidence, the working party sets out guidelines on decision-making about the resuscitation of babies born before the gestational age of 25 weeks and 6 days, dividing this period into four chronological periods: before 21 weeks and 6 days when resuscitation should normally only take place within the context of a research project; between 22 weeks and 23 weeks when resuscitation should not normally be carried out unless the parents request it; at 23 or 24 weeks when parental views should take precedence; and, after 24 weeks when resuscitation should be the norm unless not in the child’s best interests.There are several practical ethical difficulties with this aspect of the advice. To what extent, for example, does the paediatric assessment of the child, intended to play a role in decision-making about the appropriateness of resuscitation, itself depend on the initiation of resuscitation? To what extent is it reasonable and humane to expect parents to take full responsibility for making decisions about resuscitation between 23 and 24 weeks? On what grounds is it acceptable to attempt to resuscitate a baby <21 weeks and 6 …. (shrink)

The dire implications of navigating the overwhelming whiteness of the education system for Black women is foregrounded by the author’s autoethnography about her educational journey and experiences. Within it, the author illustrates the key role of her Black identity - despite being immersed in whiteness– to provide a strong sense of self, pride and resilience, which ultimately leads to her survival in the unequal spaces of the education system. By way of her own educational experiences, the author shares how she (...) becomes motivated to embark upon a PhD as a way to centre and affirm Black identities and in order to make palatable spaces within the hostility of whiteness. Drawing on her PhD research, which is framed by Black feminist epistemology, Critical Race Theory and Bourdieu’s theory of practice, her findings, based on the semi-structured interviewing of 25 other Black British women graduates, illustrates that the participants share similar educational experiences and responses. The paper concludes by asserting that the attainment of Black girls and young women often does not reflect their strong commitment to education- which evidences one consequence of journeying into the ‘heart of whiteness'. Therefore, the author argues for the necessity of more research and support for this diverse group. (shrink)

Gangestad & Simpson make a major contribution by highlighting the importance of mate choice for good genes, the costs of alternative strategies, and tradeoffs inherent in human mating. By downplaying sex differences and ignoring the nongenetic adaptive benefits of short term mating, however, they undermine their goal of “strategic pluralism” by presenting a theory devoid of many documented complexities of human mating.

Two facets of diagnostic reasoning related to scientific thinking are recognizing the difference between confounded and unconfounded evidence and selecting appropriate interventions that could provide learners the evidence necessary to make an appropriate causal conclusion (i.e., the control-of-variables strategy). The present study investigates both these abilities in 3- to 6-year-old children (N= 57). We found both competence and developmental progress in the capacity to recognize that evidence is confounded. Similarly, children performed above chance in some tasks testing for the selection (...) of a controlled test of a hypothesis. However, these capacities were unrelated, suggesting that preschoolers’ nascent understanding of the control-of-variables strategy may not be driven by a metacognitive understanding that confounded evidence does not support a unique causal conclusion, and requires further investigation. (shrink)

The writings of Stanley Cavell and Jacques Derrida share many points of intersection. One of these is their mutual interest in Shakespeare’s Hamlet; another is their assessments of J.L. Austin’s philosophy, and his concept of performativity. In this paper, we demonstrate that Cavell’s and Derrida’s respective essays on Hamlet offer a surprising insight into their views on Austin’s notion of performativity. Since Hamlet abounds with oaths and promises, testimonies and bearing witness, what is surprising is not that these philosophers should (...) have identified this theme but rather how they respond to it. We show that Derrida’s writings on Hamlet repeatedly draw and depend on the idea of performativity, amounting to a rapprochement with Austin’s concept; and we also show that Cavell questions the effectiveness of performatives in the play, in ways that sometimes resemble Derrida’s invocation of spectrality in the play. (shrink)

This is a review and discussion of Ask Vest Christiansen’s book Gym Culture, Identity and Performance-Enhancing Drugs: Tracing a Typology of Steroid Use. As indicated by the title, the book...

This is a review and discussion of Ask Vest Christiansen’s book Gym Culture, Identity and Performance-Enhancing Drugs: Tracing a Typology of Steroid Use. As indicated by the title, the book...

Mental health among students is one of the major concerns amidst the pandemic. Employing a correlational design, this study investigates the relationship between emotional intelligence and mental health among 152 senior high school students. Based on the statistical analysis, the r coefficient of 0.82 indicates a high positive correlation between the variables. The p-value of 0.00, which is less than 0.05, leads to the decision to reject the null hypothesis. Hence, a significant relationship exists between emotional intelligence and mental health (...) among senior high school. Implications were discussed in the study. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.4 (2002) 599-617 [Access article in PDF] Thinking Geometrically in Pierre-Daniel Huet's Demonstratio evangelica (1679) April G. Shelford Sometime after 1679, Pierre-Daniel Huet (1630-1721) indulged an author's vanity by comparing his Demonstratio evangelica with works whose authors are far better known today. He recorded his judgments on a scrap of paper. 1First, he contrasted the Demonstratio to Antoine Arnauld's Les nouveaux élémens (...) de géometrie (1664). While Arnauld had assumed that all the principles of geometry were true and all geometrical demonstrations certain, and had considered religious questions not amenable to methodical demonstration, Huet noted, "I made clear the contrary by proving religion through a methodical sequence of propositions similar to those one finds in geometry." For Arnauld religious belief fell into the class of things better proven through a series of mutually reinforcing propositions than through proofs modeled on geometry; Huet had actually accomplished the latter. Arnauld did not require geometric proofs in religious works; Huet wrote the Demonstratio "to satisfy those who do." Indeed, Arnauld forbade such proofs, "but I permitted them... and I proposed something to satisfy those who do [demand them]."Huet then considered Blaise Pascal's Pensées (1670). Pascal had also rejected demonstration in proving religious truths, Huet noted, opting instead for "moral proofs, which are directed more to the heart than to the mind. In other words he desired to work harder at moving and disposing the heart than at convincing and persuading the intellect." Apparently, "M. Pascal did not believe that one could prove the truth of the Christian religion by geometric proofs; much less that he had any hope of doing so." [End Page 599]Huet's jottings precisely situate the Demonstratio evangelica (1679)between the claims of Cartesian rationalism and Pascal's fideism and religion of the heart, inviting us to take another look at an imperfectly understood work. Scholarly treatment of the Demonstratio has generally been cursory or partial because it has been considered less for its own merits than for how it fits into larger research agendas. 2 Some scholars have offered important insights but either do not develop them or do not consider the Demonstratio in a sufficiently broad context. 3 A consensus on the Demonstratio's general thrust thus masks puzzling questions. Everyone acknowledges, for example, that Huet's apologetic responded to Baruch Spinoza's Tractatus theologico-politicus (1670). Like other Christian apologists, he had to maintain "the Mosaic authorship" that was "the supposed guarantee of the truth of the text," 4 devoting "long chapters to the authenticity of the books of the Old Testament." 5 Yet Huet began the Demonstratio with an assault on geometrical knowledge and an epistemological discussion—an odd place to begin refuting the Tractatus. 6 Why? The question deserves a good answer, as Huet was a scholar of international reputation, and his contemporaries judged the Demonstratio an important work. 7More important for us, the evolution of the Demonstratio superbly reflects a vanished intellectual world and scholarly culture and in fact records change [End Page 600] in that world over four decades. Its genesis was the rash promise of a young man inspired by the possibilities of geometry and aspiring to recognition in the Republic of Letters, but before fulfilling that promise Huet developed a lively interest in such diverse fields as biblical criticism and natural philosophy, and he would apply the insights gained there in his apologetic. 8 A central question confronting Huet and his contemporaries was how to achieve certainty in matters religious, historical, and scientific. 9 The Demonstratio reveals Huet's conclusion that certainty in all three was profoundly interrelated. Finally, he composed the Demonstratio during the 1670s, having grasped with much alarm the consequences of the spread of Cartesianism. Thus, the Demonstratio is an intellectual biography not just of the author but of an era.Of course, Huet had to contend with Spinoza's challenge to Mosaic authorship, which fatally undermined the historical certainty of the Bible, but he also wrote... (shrink)

Merab Konstantinovich [Mamardashvili] met with me immediately, as soon as I requested it, although he forewarned me that he could only dimly remember much of that distant past in which I was most interested. But evidently that past still perturbed him as well, since he agreed to speak with me even though he had not yet completely recovered from his illness, and hence his voice was feeble, at times subsiding to a whisper; he would pronounce his words indistinctly, constantly sticking (...) one onto another; on top of that, for technical reasons the dictaphone was situated a bit away from him. It was therefore very difficult to transcribe the text, and I raised many questions with the idea of asking Merab Konstantinovich about them at our next meeting and clearing up some things. But alas, there was no next meeting … Hence I am permitting myself now to publish only some of the most clearly enunciated fragments of my conversation with him, one of the four "forefathers" of the Moscow Methodological Circle, whose name for us, today's participants (and hence neophytes) in the methodological movement, is enveloped by legends handed down by word of mouth. I kept my questions to a minimum. Mamardashvili's reminiscences, arguments, and reflections will seem contentious to many. But no matter, one can dispute points of substance even with those who have passed on. (shrink)

Legislation that authorises controversial organ procurement strategies but ignores respect for autonomy is flawed in principle and predictably unworkable in practiceThe UK Human Tissue Act 2004,1 designed to regulate all activity involving human tissue, organs, or bodies, was introduced in the House of Commons in December 2003, received Royal Assent on 15 November 2004,2 and has been partially implemented by Commencement Orders from April 2005. The new act, which repeals and replaces the Human Tissue Act 1961, the Anatomy Act (...) 1984, and the Human Organ Transplants Act 1989, has its origins in events of serious public concern, namely the retained organs scandals at Bristol Royal Infirmary3 and the Royal Liverpool Childrens’ Hospital.4 The act is correspondingly dominated by regulation of postmortem examinations and retention of human tissue, with consistent emphasis on the need for fully informed consent. Compliance with these requirements is now mandatory with the threat of up to three years’ imprisonment and/or fines for any deviation.The impact of the original proposals within the bill on research and the clinical practice of pathology have been carefully considered and documented,5 with subsequent amendments to ameliorate professional concerns.6 The act, however, also carries significant implications for medical practice in areas where donor recruitment for transplantation can take place, and representations on these aspects during readings of the bill7 have produced neither clarification, justification, nor amendment within the final legislation.Section 43 will make it lawful for hospital authorities “to take steps for the purpose of preserving the part for use for transplantation and to retain the body for that purpose”. The original explanatory notes for the bill8 while it proceeded through parliament implied that such action, prior to consent to transplantation being sought, was then lawful, clause 44 as section 43 …. (shrink)

“You Have Seen Their Faces”: Gisèle Freund, Walter Benjamin and Margaret Bourke-White as Headhunters of the Thirties -/- Abstract This paper concentrates on one work by each of three authors: Walter Benjamin’s Deutsche Menschen (Germans), an anthology of twenty-five 18th and 19th century German personal letters; Margaret Bourke-White and Erskine Caldwell’s You Have Seen Their Faces; and Gisèle Freund’s collection of photographic portraits of writers and artists, compiled between 1936 and 1939. The purpose of this paper is to compare the (...) politics of representation of these three figures and to examine the challenge they addressed to the dominant iconography of the 1930s. At the heart of each one’s work was a desire to bring about a shift in contemporary cultural politics by reimagining the body politic. Benjamin’s and Freund’s aim was to displace the monumentalizing, distancing, ‘heroic’ forms of fascist art and writing. They construct and project an intimate, or ‘domestic’ image of humanism as a form of social practice, past and present. Bourke-White’s aim was to bring to visibility an America concealed beneath the glossy homogenized images of white American advertising. All three authors aligned themselves with a documentary tradition that believed that representation should function as a constructed record of the traces of lived experience. Driven by a need to expose the other side’s deliberate falsifications of experience, they saw their own constructed fictions as ways of ‘documenting,’ and then perhaps transforming, an experiential world of ‘facts,’ bodies, and ‘truths.’ -/- Working Paper 3:15 European Society and Culture Research Group. Center for German and European Studies, University of California at Berkeley. April 1994 37pp. -/- M. Kay Flavell Critical Theory, University of California at Davis . (shrink)

The Human Tissue Act 2004 is designed to regulate the storage and use of organs and tissues from the living, and the removal, storage and use of the same material from the deceased. It repeals much criticized legislation, including the Human Tissue Act 1961, and establishes a Human Tissue Authority to ensure compliance with the Act via a licensing and monitoring regime. When the Act comes into force, probably in April 2006, it will be a criminal offence not to (...) comply with certain provisions of the Act, and a new offence of DNA 'theft' will be introduced. Importantly, the Act places consent at the centre of the system, both from the living and from or on behalf of the deceased. (shrink)

It is claimed by the future like ours anti-abortion argument that since killing adult humans is wrong because it deprives them of a future of value and the fetus has a future of value, killing fetuses is wrong in the same way that killing adult human beings is wrong. In The morality of abortion and the deprivation of futures (this journal, April 2000) I argued that the persuasive power of this argument rests upon an equivocation on the term “future (...) of value”. If the expression means “a potential future of value” then the moral claim is implausible because people do not in general have rights to what they need to fulfill their potential; if the expression means “self-represented future of value” then the argument fails because the fetus does not represent its future. Under no interpretation is the argument sound. In Deprivations, futures and the wrongness of killing (this journal, December 2001) Donald Marquis, author of the future like ours argument, responds at length to this objection. In the present essay the focus of the debate shifts to the proper interpretation of the right not to be killed. Donald Marquis argues that this liberty right entails the welfare right to the means necessary to sustain life; I argue that the right not to be killed does not entail unlimited welfare rights. On Marquis's view, the right not to be killed confers upon the fetus the right to whatever it takes to sustain life; on the view I defend, the right not to be killed does not confer upon the fetus or anyone else the right to another person's body. On Marquis's view, abortion is almost never permissible; on my view abortion is almost always permissible. (shrink)

It is generally accepted among Marxists that the laws of materialist dialectics represent a great, scientifically significant achievement for human knowledge, and that they develop as cognition advances. It is also generally accepted that, under new conditions - for example, in a fundamentally new phase in the development of human society such as is presented by socialism - the objective laws of dialectics acquire distinctive new characteristics, are altered, modified. But is it proper to speak of change or evolution of (...) the laws of objective dialectics? Two different viewpoints on this matter were clearly present at the USSR Symposium in April 1965. (shrink)

n April, 2014 I organized an International Workshop on East-West Approaches to the Nature of Mind, Consciousness and Self, in the beautiful grounds of Dartington Hall, in Devon, England to explore the edges of current understanding of ordinary and extra-ordinary conscious experience. Although Consciousness Studies is now a flourishing area of investigation, ordinary and extra-ordinary human experiences do not fit comfortably into the prevailing materialist-reductionist paradigm, suggesting the need to explore non-reductionist approaches in an open, but nevertheless rigorous way. (...) Consciousness has, of course, also been studied in the East over the millennia, but there are major cultural differences in the ways mind, consciousness and self are conceptualized and investigated in the East and in the West, making it difficult to integrate Eastern with Western ways of thought. This provided the purpose for the workshop—to gather together an invited selection of some of the best current thinkers and researchers in this cross-disciplinary area to present their work, along with a group of discussants that included equally senior, mid-career and more junior researchers from different traditions (both Eastern and Western), to explore the issues in depth, with the aim of moving closer to a more integrated, inclusive worldview. The progression of the workshop over four days broadly followed four themes: 1) how to obtain knowledge additional to that provided by the usual third-person methods of science through subjective ways of knowing and by focusing close attention on the details of ordinary experience 2) the range and significance of extraordinary experiences 3) the potentially transformative effects on the knower of engaging in such explorations, and 4) some integrative ways of thinking about what is revealed by such investigations. (shrink)

The revolutionary restructuring of the whole of the life of our society, which got under way in the country after the April 1985 Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, is inseparably bound up with a consolidation of the moral foundations of socialist society and the Soviet mode of life. A profound intellectual conviction, the greatest political and moral responsibility for the fate of the country, and an unwavering observance of the Leninist ethics of Bolshevism are the demands (...) now being placed on all Soviet people, but with special urgency on Party members. A concern for the moral purity and honesty of Communists is the prime duty of a Party organization. The Party calls for a most merciless struggle against accommodators, careerists, and opportunists, and against protectionism, family favoritism, nepotism, and promotion of workers on the basis of hometownism and personal loyalty. Party organizations must apply the full rigor of the requirements of the Party statutes to those who compromise the name of Party member and Soviet leader by violating Party duty, the commission of crimes of office, greed, economic featherbedding, and moral dereliction. (shrink)

It is a familiar story that on April 5, 56 B.C., Cicero made a motion in the Senate concerning Caesar's Campanian land law, and that this action of his was one of the reasons for the conference of Luca. Query: What were the terms of the motion?

In April 2002 a new law regarding euthanasia came into effect in the Netherlands. This law holds that euthanasia remains a criminal offence unless it is performed by a physician who acts according to six specified rules of due care and reports the case to a review committee. The six rules of due care are similar to those of the previous regulation and are largely based on jurisprudence. Completely new, however, is the article concerning a competent patient who has (...) written an advance directive requesting euthanasia under certain circumstances. The law stipulates that a physician may act according to that written request, as long as he or she fulfils all other rules of due care. The author defends the view that these requests are neither feasible nor ethically justifiable, and presents both moral and practical arguments for this, claiming that for consistency reasons one cannot act on the basis of a written statement and fulfil the other rules of due care at the same time. The author also examines a difficult case of a demented, severely depressed woman who had written a living will requesting euthanasia before she became demented. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:DOES GOD HAVE A QUIDDITY ACCORDING TO AVICENNA* IN THE NEW critical edition of Avicenna's MemphyS'ics by S. Van Riet at Louvain (I, 1977; II, 1980; III, 1983), Gerard Verbeke states that according to Avicenna, "L'Etre necessaire n'a pas une essence qui est distincte de son existence" (II, p. * 42, at note 159), i.e. that the Necessary Being does not have an essence that is distinct from its (...) existence. One looks in vain for a precise reference to an Avicennian text. On the other hand, in a three-part study, Albert G. Judy, O.P., "Avicenna's Me1taphy8'ics in the Summa contra Gentiles," published in Angelicum, part I: 52 (1975) 340-384; part II: 541-586; part Ill: 53 (1976) 183-226, states quite clearly that the "First" does not have a quiddity but only an "anity" (anitas)... (546), and that Avicenna... finds that the absolutely necessary being cannot have what every other reality has, namely, a quiddity, a "whatness " distinct from its" whether-ness" or anitas (547-548). Moreover, the first appendix of Judy's article contains a redaction of the 1495 and the 1508 Venice editions of ltletaphyiscs 8.4, which differs chiefly in punctuation from the excellent Van Riet text based on five Latin MSS. A slightly more nuanced position is. found in Etienne Gilson's Elements of Christian Philosoph;y (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1960), p. 127: "... such exactly had been the con- * Delivered before the Society for the Study of Islamic Philosophy and Science meeting in conjunction with The American Catholic Philosophical Association in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on April 12, 1985. 79 80 E. M. MACIEROWSKI clusion of Avicenna: the first has no quiddity (quidditatem non habet)," a claim that cites (305, note 28) secondary literature which one can trace as far back as Father M.-D. RolandGosselin 's edition of the De ente et essentia. What is at stake in this dispute? What if God does not have a quiddity? It would seem that He should be utterly unknowable, if quiddity or essence is a principle of knowledge as well as of being. Such would be plausible consequences of Gilson's and Judy's position. What, on the other hand, if God does have a quiddity? One possible inference, if we happened to have access or insight into the divine quiddity, is that we could have a sort of mystical union with God, perhaps even in this life; or again, one might draw pantheistic conclusions. Verbeke does not follow such paths. His inference points toward a rawrochement between Avicenna's doctrine and that of St. Thomas Aquinas, who maintained not only that God is His own essence (and therefore that it is reasonable to speak of a divine essence) but also that God's essence is no other than His esse, His being or existence. Accordingly, for scholars to have such opposed views about so important a topic even at the hermeneutical level of Avicenna's position points to a serious difficulty. Since Judy does offer texts in support of his interpretation, let us consider the evidence, using his section numbers and Van Riet's pages and lines: Judy, section 4=Van Riet 398.83-399.84 goes thus in Latin: Redibo igitur et dicam quod primum non habet quidditatem, nisi anitatem, quae sit discreta ab ipsa. This text he renders, "The first does not have a quiddity, except an 'anity,' which is distinct from it" (549). The other text in Latin (Judy, section 13=Van Riet 401.31-32) goes thus: Igitur necesse esse non habet quidditatem nisi quod est necesse esse, et haec est anitas, which he renders, "Therefore necessary being does not have a quiddity, but only the fact of its necessary being, and this is DOES GOD HAVE A QUIDDITY ACCORDING TO AVICENNA 81 'anity'" (559). We wonder, however, why nisi should be translated "except" in section 4 and "hut only" in section 13. One would have expected a sed solum or a sed tantum to justify the rendering "but only." Accordingly, the translation should be corrected to read, " Therefore the necessary being has no quiddity except that it is necessary being, and this... (shrink)

The aim of this study was to explore the effects of prosocial and antisocial personality tendencies and context-related state factors on compliance with protective behaviors to prevent the spread of coronavirus infections. Six types of prosocial tendencies and selfishness as the antisocial tendency were included as personality factors, while fear related to the pandemic and empathy toward vulnerable groups were context-related factors. Furthermore, mediation effect of empathy and moderation effect of fear were explored in relations between personality factors and protective (...) behaviors. The sample included 581 participants. The data were collected from March 28 to April 6, 2020, during the emergency state and curfew in Serbia. The results showed that tendency to help anonymously had a positive effect and selfishness had a negative effect on protective behaviors, over and above demographic characteristics and context-related factors. Among context-related factors, only fear related to the pandemic had a significant unique positive effect on protective behaviors, but it had no moderator effect in the relationship between personality traits and protective behaviors. However, empathy acted as a mediator and partly accounted for the negative effect of selfishness and positive effect of tendency to help anonymously on protective behaviors. The results revealed that compliance with protective measures could be seen as prosocial and unselfish form of behavior. Furthermore, these findings have practical implications for shaping public messages and they can help effectively promote health-responsible behaviors. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:BonaventureJay M. HammondChristopher M. Cullen, Bonaventure, Great Medieval Thinkers Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN: 0-19-514925-4 (paperback); 0-19-514926-2 (hardback). Pages: xviii + 251.This volume makes a valuable contribution to the "great medieval thinkers" series from OUP by providing an accessible introduction to the philosophy and theology of the great Franciscan St. Bonaventure († 1274). The Preface presents the book's organizing principle: "to analyze Bonaventure's thought by following (...) his own division of the branches of philosophy and theology" (xi) as found in the Bonaventure's classic text On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology (text explained on 29-32; oddly the book never addresses the discrepancy in the dating of the text, c. 1254 or c. 1270). This text considers how the new core subjects of the arts, heavily influenced by Aristotle and expanding beyond the trivium and quadrivium, are illuminations that should lead back to theology, that is to Scripture, which "lies hidden in all knowledge and in all nature."Part I, contains two chapters: the Introduction and another on the definition of Christian Wisdom, the ultimate goal of the Reduction of the Arts. Part II, "The Light of Philosophical Knowledge," contains three chapters on Bonaventure's physics, metaphysics, and moral philosophy. Part III, "The Light of Theological Knowledge," includes seven chapters organized according to Bonaventure's Breviloquium: the Trinity, Creation, Sin, the Incarnation, Grace, the Sacraments, and the Last Things.The preface sets out three claims that color the rest of the book. First, as mentioned, the book attempts an "introduction to the philosophy and theology" of Bonaventure, which the book calls "Christian Philosophy" (a term introduced by Étienne Gilson, Leon Veuthey and later adopted by John Quinn). Yet, I agree with the preface that "it is not easy to say precisely what this means in practice" (xi). Although Bonaventure did employ the phrase "Christian Wisdom" throughout his writings, he never used the phrase "Christian [End Page 541] Philosophy." More explanation of this key term would have been helpful because it seems to relate more to the neo-scholastic disputes of the early to mid twentieth century than to Bonaventure's thirteenth century thought. Second, the book claims that "his Commentary on the Sentences should have a priority of place in any accurate reading" of his thought. On this point the book delivers by citing more from the Sentence Commentary than any other of Bonaventure's works (139 times overall, 63 from Book II alone), but with the much shorter Breviloquium coming in a close second (128 times). Four works come in a distant third (Hexaemeron 38, Itinerarium 32, De mysterio Trinitatis 21, and De scientia Christi 21). Unfortunately little attention is given to Bonaventure's sermons, scripture commentaries, hagiographies and spiritual tracts. Third, whatever shortcomings the book has regarding the coverage of Bonaventure's many works, the book still fulfills its claim to provide "an overview of [Bonaventure's] synthesis," which is "an elaborate and sophisticated synthesis, created in a specific historical context" (xiv).The book begins with an introductory sketch of Bonaventure's life framed by three key historic movements of the thirteenth century: the rediscovery of Aristotle, the emergence of the "universities," and the rise of the mendicant orders. These overlapping contexts are indispensable to understanding Bonaventure's writings, which the introduction surveys in general chronological order and according to genre. After reviewing his life and works, the Introduction concludes with a consideration of Bonaventure's influence. The Introduction is helpful in orienting the modern reader to Bonaventure's thought, particularly his unique synthesis of Augustine and Aristotle. However, some of the dating is imprecise. For example, in October 1255 (not 1256) Bonaventure responded to William of Saint-Amour's attacks against the mendicants with Q.1 De humilitate of his De perfectione evangelica. Thus, Bonaventure entered the secular-mendicant controversy before Thomas Aquinas and Thomas of York (12, 17). Likewise, Bonaventure most likely incepted into the Parisian consortium of masters in April 1254 not October 1257 (11).While all of Part II provides good information on the intricacies of Bonaventure's philosophy, the sections explaining [End Page 542] his hylomorphic metaphysics (42... (shrink)

Objective: Ethical guidelines are designed to ensure benefits, protection and respect of participants in clinical research. Clinical trials must now be registered on open-access databases and provide details on ethical considerations. This systematic survey aimed to determine the extent to which recently registered clinical trials report the use of standard of care and post-trial obligations in trial registries, and whether trial characteristics vary according to setting. Methods: We selected global randomized trials registered on http://www.clinicaltrials.gov and http://www.controlled-trials.com. We searched for intervention (...) trials of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis from 9 October 2004, the date of the most recent version of the Helsinki Declaration, to 10 April 2007. Results: We collected data from 312 trials. Fifty-eight percent (58%, 95% CI = 53 to 64) of trial protocols report informed consent. Fifty-eight percent (58%, 95% CI = 53 to 64) of trials report active controls. Almost no trials (1%, 95% CI = 0.5 to 3) mention post-trial provisions. Most trials measure surrogate outcomes. Twenty percent (20%, 95% CI = 16 to 25) of trials measure patient-important outcomes, such as death; and the odds that these outcomes are in a low income country are five times greater than for a developed country (odds ratio (OR) 5.03, 95% CI = 2.70 to 9.35, p = < 0.001). Pharmaceutical companies are involved in 28% (CI = 23 to 33) of trials and measure surrogate outcomes more often than nonpharmaceutical companies (OR 2.45, 95% CI = 1.18 to 5.09, p = 0.31). Conclusion: We found a large discrepancy in the quality of reporting and approaches used in trials in developing settings compared to wealthier settings. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 11.2 (2004) 165-173 [Access article in PDF] Professional Judgment, Critical Realism, Real People, and, Yes, Two Wrongs Can Make a Right! K.W.M. Fulford Anthony Colombo Keywords values, values-based practice, models of disorder, concept of mental illness, user-centred practice, patient-centred practice, multidisciplinary teamwork We are grateful to our four commentators for putting much-needed conceptual air and space around the models project. Published originally as an empirical (...) study of the different implicit models of disorder, held by users of services, carers, nurses, psychiatrists, and social workers (Colombo et al. 2003), our paper outlined the philosophical roots of the models project in linguistic analytic philosophy of the "Oxford school" (Fulford and Colombo 2004). Our four commentators provide extra dimensions of understanding, respectively from professional education (Williams 2004), sociology (Bendelow 2004), Heideggerian phenomenology (Heginbotham 2004), and mental health policy and practice (Williamson 2004).Since the original study, the models project has been taken forward as a key contribution to a range of philosophy-into-practice initiatives called, collectively, Values-Based Practice. In this brief response, we outline the key features of Values-Based Practice and indicate how these connect with some of the many thoughtful points about models made by our commentators. Values-Based Practice Values-Based Practice, then, is the theory and skills-base for effective health care decision making where different, and hence potentially conflicting, values are in play (Fulford 2004). Premised on the democratic meta-value of equal respect for all voices, Values-Based Practice relies, much as a political democracy relies, on good process rather than preset outcomes for its practical effectiveness. The ten pointers to good process in Values-Based Practice are summarized in Figure 1. We return to the implications of these for the work on models below.Relying on good process may be thought to be a recipe more for relativism and indecision in clinical decision making than for practical effectiveness. To the contrary, however, the 'values democracy' of Values-Based Practice, again like a political democracy, carries a number of clear and coherent implications for policy and practice in health care. [End Page 165] Click for larger viewFigure 1 10 Pointers to Good Process in VBP [End Page 166]Examples of the implications of Values-Based Practice for policy and practice are given in the Values Framework shown in Figure 2. This is a policy framework for the development of Values-Based Practice in mental health produced by a project group in the National Institute for Mental Health in England (NIMHE), the section of the UK's National Health Service (NHS) responsible for implementing government policy on mental health as embodied in the National Service Framework for Mental Health (Department of Health 1999) and subsequent policies. The framework gives three key principles of Values-Based Practice (the three Rs of recognition, raising awareness, and respect) and then summarizes some of the specific implications of the approach. Racism, for example, is incompatible with Values-Based Practice because racism is by definition intolerant of diversity. Again, we indicate some of the policy implications of Values-Based Practice for the points about models made by our commentators below.Training for mental health practitioners in Values-Based Practice will be rolled out from April 2005, through both voluntary and statutory bodies, in each of the eight regions of the National Health Service of England and Wales. This roll out will be supported by training methods developed and piloted in a unique joint venture between Warwick University's Department of Philosophy and Medical School, and an in-service training provider, the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health (Fulford, Williamson, and Woodbridge 2002; Woodbridge and Fulford 2003). These training methods are the basis of a detailed workbook for Values-Based Practice (Woodbridge and Fulford 2004). The workbook will be launched in July 2004 at a conference in London by the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health, Rosie Winterton. Professional Training and Professional Judgment The models project has been central to the development of... (shrink)

Even if game theory is broadened to encompass other-regarding preferences, it cannot adequately model all aspects of interactive decision making. Payoff dominance is an example of a phenomenon that can be adequately modeled only by departing radically from standard assumptions of decision theory and game theory – either the unit of agency or the nature of rationality. (Published Online April 27 2007).

The idea that the world, not only of man but also of nature, was subject to a continuous process of change has taken strong root since the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1859, Charles Darwin demonstrated that these changes were the result of immutable, eternal laws - although everything was subject to change, it was only in accordance with these laws. from the second half of the nineteenth century down to the First World War, this vision of change and (...) determination was interpreted in many different ways, both pessimistically and optimistically. It is striking that a fear of degeneration often went hand in hand with a belief in an upward evolutionary process and was not confined to any particular political spectrum. This volume, number XIV in the series, contains the papers presented at a workshop on the reception and interpretation of the theory of evolution, organised by the editors in April 2003. It covers the many, often irreconcilable faces, of the theory of evolution concerning not only the concrete substantive interpretation but also the many different fields of late nineteenth century thought by concentrating on cultural life in the broadest sense - political, social, scientific and artistic, both literature and the visual arts. This volume illustrates the versatility of the concept of evolution, and of degeneration as well, with the emphasis on the Netherlands. It not only presents the contradictions and many-sidedness of the post-Darwinian world, but also the continuity with the world before 1860. Moreover, it reveals one clear co-ordinating theme, namely that the theory of evolution was used as justification for many different ideologies and practices. (shrink)

After an important public debate, the law of 22 April 2005 on the rights of the patient and on the end of life has been voted in, in France.1 It gives us an alternative to the Dutch euthanasia model.2 The purpose of this law is to develop palliative care , to form healthcare professionals for terminally ill patients, to make them more sensitive to such situations and, finally, also to inform public opinion and jurists. Decrees of application were published (...) on 7 February 2006.From now on, a collective and transparent procedure is compulsory when it requires limiting or interrupting …. (shrink)