The most recent (Fifth) revision of the Declaration of Helsinki, adopted in October 2000 by the World Medical Association (WMA), reinforces the longstanding prohibition against offering placebo instead of effective therapy. The WMA left no doubt that if a beneficial treatment for a condition has already been recognised, it is unethical to offer placebo in place of such treatment to anyone in a study of the same condition. We have previously drawn attention to the discrepancy between the spirit of the (...) Declaration and the common practice of using placebo controls in randomised trials even if effective treatment exists. Despite the mandates of the Declaration of Helsinki and concern from ethicists and scientists, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continues to demand and defend placebo‐controlled evidence of efficacy and safety for the development of many new pharmaceuticals, even if effective therapy exists. We suggest that the FDA's arguments defending their practice are insufficient to justify medical research that violates the Declaration of Helsinki. (shrink)

Knowledge consists of the triad: information, interpretation, and judgement. Much of modern political economy has miscarried by proceeding as though knowledge were merely “information” that is, as though interpretation were symmetric and final. Economic prosperity depends greatly on new knowledge or “discovery” of profit opportunities that translate into social betterment. These discoveries are often a transcending of the working interpretation, not merely the acquisition of new information. The evolution of interpretations is key to appreciating voluntarism as a maxim for policy. (...) Smith, Hayek, and Kirzner taught that bad public policy is partly the result of not knowing better, not of evil or greed. Economists may justify their efforts and their salaries chiefly by teaching citizens to know better. Such is the economist’s calling.La connaissance consiste en une triade : information, interprétation, et jugement. Une bonne part de l’économie politique moderne a échoué en assimilant la connaissance à l’information, ce qui revenait à dire que l’interprétation était symétrique et ultime. La prospérité économique repose dans une grande mesure sur l’émergence de nouvelles connaissances ou la “découverte” d’occasions de profit porteuses d’améliorations sociales. Souvent ces découvertes transcendent l’interprétation courante et non seulement l’acquisition de nouvelles informations. L’évolution des interprétations est essentielle pour évaluer le volontarisme en tant que maxime pour la politique. Smith, Hayek et Kirzner nous ont enseigné que des politiques publiques inappropriées résultent en partie d’une déficience de connaissances plutôt que de mauvaises intentions ou d’avidité. Les économistes peuvent justifier leurs efforts et leurs salaires essentiellement en apprenant aux citoyens à s’enrichir de connaissances. Telle est la vocation de l’économiste. (shrink)

Arguably, no historical thinker has had as varied and fractious a reception within modern Judaism as Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza (1632-77), the seventeenth-century philosopher, pioneering biblical critic, and Jewish heretic from Amsterdam. Revered in many circles as the patron saint of secular Jewishness, he has also been branded as the worst traitor to the Jewish people in modern times. Jewish philosophy has cast Spinoza as marking a turning point between the old and the new, as a radicalizer of the medieval tradition (...) and table setter for the modern. He has served as a perennial landmark and point of reference in the construction of modern Jewish identity. This volume brings together excerpts from central works in the Jewish response to Spinoza. True to the diversity of Spinoza's Jewish reception, it features a mix of genres, from philosophical criticism to historical fiction, from tributes to diary entries, providing the reader with a sense of the overall historical development of Spinoza's posthumous legacy. (shrink)

This study focuses upon two competing visions of wealth and work among Baptists in America and how these different visions have shaped Baptist business ethics. Russell H. Conwell reflected the Reformed tradition's inclination toward what came to be called the Protestant work ethic and its defense of capitalism. He contended that American capitalism presented an open door for any diligent worker to achieve deserved riches. Walter Rauschenbusch reflected the Anabaptist heritage in the stream of Baptist history. He challenged the dominant (...) ethos of the industrial revolution in America and its preference for the interests of management; he called instead for the protection of the worker from the monopolistic power of the capitalists. These two contrasting postures influenced the response of Baptists to the labor-management struggle. (shrink)

Recent studies challenge the classical view that the origin of animal life was primarily controlled by atmospheric oxygen levels. For example, some modern sponges, representing early‐branching animals, can live under 200 times less oxygen than currently present in the atmosphere – levels commonly thought to have been maintained prior to their origination. Furthermore, it is increasingly argued that the earliest animals, which likely lived in low oxygen environments, played an active role in constructing the well‐oxygenated conditions typical of the modern (...) oceans. Therefore, while oxygen is still relevant to understanding early animal evolution, the relationships between the two might be less straightforward than previously thought. (shrink)

Dealing with major issues in Jewish biomedical law, this book focuses upon the influence of morality, the rise of patient autonomy, and the role played by scientific progress in this area of Jewish Law. The book examines Jewish Law in comparison with canon, common, and modern Israeli law.

© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Scots Philosophical Association and the University of St Andrews. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] richness and originality of Thomas Aquinas’ theory of self-knowledge has been underappreciated no less by his admirers than his critics. The former consider it secondary to his teaching on cognition in general, and the latter dismiss it as scholastic triviality. Cory wishes to restore Aquinas’ theory of self-knowledge to its rightful (...) place, and to do so she must provide both its historical context and the theoretical implications it has for Aquinas’ anthropology and epistemology.Cory's basic premise is that Aquinas needed to maintain both that the intellect can know itself only by cognizing something else and that it has no explicit awareness of anything outside itself without implicit awareness of itself. To elaborate this ‘fundamental duality’ of conscious thought,... (shrink)

Grabowski, a self-described Platonic realist, argues against the "standard interpretation" of Plato's Forms as abstract universals in favor of the view that they are concrete particulars. He explains that the mistaken standard interpretation arises from a deeply ingrained habit of reading Plato's texts through the hermeneutical lens of the universals. Universals undoubtedly play a major role in the history of philosophy, though they were not Plato's primary concern in elaborating a theory of the Forms. "It is not that the problem (...) of universals gives rise to the Forms, but that the Forms give rise to the problem of universals" .According to Grabowski, if it can be shown that Plato never expunged the "model of acquaintance" from his theory of knowledge, then, strange as it seems, we can reasonably believe that Plato posited, or should have posited, the Forms as concrete particulars similar to those that exist in the sensible world, albeit bereft of any of the latter's "ontological deficiencies" .Grabowski begins the task by constructing an argument for the "standard interpretation," only to show that this interpretation proves unpersuasive, if for no other reason than the paucity of evidence supporting it in Plato's texts. In chapter 2, Grabowski summarizes. (shrink)