Ensuring that countries have adequate research capacities is essential for an effective and efficient response to infectious disease outbreaks. The need for ethical principles and values embodied in international research ethics guidelines to be upheld during public health emergencies is widely recognized. Public health officials, researchers and other concerned stakeholders also have to carefully balance time and resources allocated to immediate treatment and control activities, with an approach that integrates research as part of the outbreak response. Under such circumstances, research (...) “ethics preparedness” constitutes an important foundation for an effective response to infectious disease outbreaks and other health emergencies. A two-day workshop was convened in March 2018 by the World Health Organisation Global Health Ethics Team and the African coaLition for Epidemic Research, Response and Training, with representatives of National Ethics Committees, to identify practical processes and procedures related to ethics review preparedness. The workshop considered five areas where work might be undertaken to facilitate rapid and sound ethics review: preparing national ethics committees for outbreak response; pre-review of protocols; multi-country review; coordination between national ethics committees and other key stakeholders; data and benefit sharing; and export of samples to third countries. In this paper, we present the recommendations that resulted from the workshop. In particular, the participants recommended that Ethics Committees would develop a formal national standard operating procedure for emergency response ethical review; that there is a need to clarify the terminology and expectations of pre-review of generic protocols and agree upon specific terminology; that there is a need to explore mechanisms for multi-country emergency ethical consultation, and to establish procedures for communication between national ethics committees and other oversight bodies and public health authorities. In addition, it was suggested that ethics committees should request from researchers, at a minimum, a preliminary data sharing and sample sharing plan that outlines the benefit to the population from which data and samples are to be drawn. This should be followed in due time by a full plan. It is hoped that the national ethics committees, supported by the WHO, relevant collaborative research consortia and external funding agencies, will work towards bringing these recommendations into practice, for supporting the conduct of effective research during outbreaks. (shrink)

Draws on interviews with many of the worlds leading scientists to discuss the possibility that humankind has reached the limits of scientific knowledge.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Catholic Social Teaching and the Allocation of Scarce ResourcesJohn Langan S.J. (bio)I shall approach the issue of justice in the allocation of scarce resources from the viewpoint of Catholic social teaching, as developed over the last century. This teaching is found primarily in the social encyclicals issued by popes from Leo XIII (1878–1903) to John Paul II (1978- ), but also in the pastoral letters of the various (...) bishops’ conferences, especially in the United States and in Latin America. These documents, which enjoy a high standing in Catholic teaching but which are not taken as binding in all their particulars, form part of a tradition of moral and social theorizing that a contemporary American would regard as “communitarian.” On social questions, this tradition also has shown itself to be historicist in that it is capable of modifying itself in significant ways in response to changing political and economic situations. It normally approaches issues from a universalist perspective, though it has shifted from a preoccupation with the concerns of the industrial societies of Europe to an advocacy of much of the reform agenda of the Third World.Rooted in classical and biblical sources and modified in the course of the last [End Page 401] century to include a principled acceptance of religious freedom, of human rights, and of democratic political institutions, the Catholic social tradition proposes a number of ideas that can serve as the basis for significant criticism of currently dominant liberal modes of organizing and interpreting advanced industrial societies. These ideas do not form a countertheory to liberalism so much as they indicate ways in which a religious organization that includes both hierarchical and egalitarian elements in its structure and that has both moral commitments and practical responsibilities with regard to health care can draw on its intellectual resources to develop alternative strategies for the reform of health care.I shall survey six ideas that figure prominently in Catholic social teaching and that are relevant to the allocation of scare resources in American health care. Space constraints require that I present them in a very condensed fashion, without tracing the complex development they have undergone in the internal Catholic debate or subjecting them to much criticism.First, Catholic social teaching, especially the great encyclical of John XXIII, Pacem In Terris (PT 1963), affirms the full range of human rights recognized in such modern documents as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1949). In addition to the civil and political rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights added to the original U.S. Constitution (1791), the Universal Declaration includes rights “to life, to bodily integrity, and to the means which are suitable for the proper development of life; these are primarily food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care, and finally the necessary social services” (PT 11). Catholic social teaching has not committed itself to one particular way of institutionalizing these rights, but it effectively endorses the comprehensive West European welfare states that the Christian Democratic political parties helped to construct in the period after 1945.Second, Catholic social teaching has accorded a central organizing role to the notion of the common good, the realization of which “is the whole reason for the existence of civil authorities” (PT 54). The common good, however, is not to be understood as identical with the interest or the power of the state; rather, it “embraces the sum total of those conditions of social living whereby men are enabled to achieve their own integral perfection more fully and more easily” (PT 58; quoting Mater et Magistra). John XXIII is particularly anxious to affirm that the common good cannot be construed so as to exclude some groups or to violate the rights of individuals and that it must include both physical and spiritual goods (PT 55–61). The notion of the common good has both an inherent attractiveness and a vagueness that cries out for specification and clarification. But in the contemporary situation it serves to remind us that “individual citizens and intermediate groups are obliged to make their specific contributions to the common welfare” (PT 53).Third, while an insistence on the primacy of the common good and on the [End Page 402... (shrink)

Author John E. Rexine expounds on the theologies of the great Roman thinkers Plato and Cicero in this essay.

A fundamental issue concerning the treatment of meaning in context is how to deal with the extremely flexible relationship that appears to hold between descriptions, which are taken as the exchange...

CUA Press proudly announces the reissue of 32 titles from this internationally acclaimed series. These long-unavailable titles, which cover all aspects of philosophy, will be published in paperback and ebook formats. Authors include renowned philosophers such as Ralph McInerny, Robert Sokolowski, and John Wippel.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

John Haldane; The Mystery of Emergence, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 96, Issue 1, 1 June 1996, Pages 261–268, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristot.

"Don't believe any of this. Place no value in the book, in the author. Give it up, the idea of author, of truth. Give up all believe: believe only in yourself. You: you are nothing but my experience. Me: I don't. I don't believe any of this." —John Brockman.

This paper has two parts. The first is an exposition of John Foster's argument that ultimate reality, whatever else it might be, is not physical, and could not be. The second part is a somewhat tentative discussion of this argument, in which I consider ways it might be challenged or amended. I suggest that while Foster's argument may not render materialism untenable, at the very least it forces the materialist to adopt certain other controversial views, and so is a (...) force to be reckoned with. I shall use the term physical anti-realism to denote the thesis that ultimate reality does not, and cannot possibly, contain anything material or physical. By physicalism I mean the doctrine that ultimate reality can be physical, at least in part. What Foster means by "ultimate reality" will be explained shortly, but it can be taken roughly to mean: the world as it really is, objectively, as opposed to how it appears to be, or how we conceive it to be. The full-scale version of Foster's argument for physical anti-realism is to be found in the first eleven chapters of The Case for Idealism.2 In the remaining six chapters, he argues that the best way of accommodating this negative result is to adopt a version of phenomenalism, by holding that the physical world exists, but only as a "creation" of contingent constraints on the course of human sensory experience. In what follows, I shall be concerned only with the negative part of Foster's argument, his case against physicalism. Foster himself has recently provided a shorter version of his argument, in "The Succinct Case for Idealism".3 The latter work, henceforth The Succinct Case, as opposed to just The Case, is mainly given over to the anti-realist argument, and provides an excellent introduction to it. The exposition which follows may well be longer than the entire Succinct Case. (shrink)

Thornhill, John Among the thinkers who have helped me expand my intellectual horizons, Dawson has a unique place. From an early date, I became aware of the importance of situating the Church's expression of our faith tradition in its historical and cultural context. In time I was to find that Dawson's interpretation of cultural history made it possible to do this within the enlightening framework he provided.

In Adulthood, Morality, and the Fully Human, John Shea examines what it means for someone to achieve full moral development or to become what he calls “fully human.” Shea highlights integrity, mutuality, care, and justice as core components of this process and depicts the effects of personal growth on education, psychotherapy, and spirituality.

Over the past two centuries Western culture has largely valorized a particular kind of 'good' music--highly serious, wondrously deep, stylistically authentic, heroically created, and strikingly original--and, at the same time, has marginalized music that does not live up to those ideals. In Good Music, John J. Sheinbaum explores these traditional models for valuing music. By engaging examples such as Handel oratorios, Beethoven and Mahler symphonies, jazz improvisations, Bruce Springsteen, and prog rock, he argues that metaphors of perfection do justice (...) to neither the perceived strengths nor the assumed weaknesses of the music in question. Instead, he proposes an alternative model of appreciation where abstract notions of virtue need not dictate our understanding. Good music can, with pride, be playful rather than serious, diverse rather than unified, engaging to both body and mind, in dialogue with manifold styles and genres, and collaborative to the core. We can widen the scope of what music we value and reconsider the conventional rituals surrounding it, while retaining the joys of making music, listening closely, and caring passionately"-- $c Page [4] of cover. (shrink)

The Foundations of Pragmatism in American Thought Series offers two sets of volumes containing the most significant defenses and critiques of pragmatism written before World War I: the Early Defenders of Pragmatism and Early Critics of Pragmatism. This, the first collection, Early Defenders, provides key texts for understanding the context of pragmatism's years of greatest vitality. The early defenders were products of pragmatism's three cradles. H. Heath Bawden was a graduate of the Chicago philosophy department, having studied with John (...) Dewey and George Mead. John E. Boodin and Horace M. Kallen earned their Ph.Ds with William James and Josiah Royce at Harvard. D. L. Murray and Howard V. Knox were independent scholars and writers inspired by F. C. S. Schiller's humanistic pragmatism at Oxford. This collection brings together the central texts of the movement along with a representative selection of the secondary texts, reviews and responses, they elicited. Each volume features a newly-commissioned introduction by a leading scholar of American pragmatism. --five central texts reproduced in facsimile, accompanied by the main responses and replies, reset in new typography --scattered and scarce works available together for the first time --new introductions to each volume by leading scholars of American pragmatism. (shrink)

During the last 40 years, political philosophers have made important advances in our understanding of why equality is valuable, and what kind of equality is important. This article summarizes the development of these ideas, in particular, the contributions of John Rawls, Amartya Sen, Ronald Dworkin, Robert Nozick, Richard Arneson, and G. A. Cohen. It shows how these ideas have filtered into economic thinking in the conceptualization of equality of opportunity. It concludes with a brief discussion of how these ideas (...) might be extended to evaluate intergenerational and global distributions of income or welfare. (shrink)

RECENT JEWISH—CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE HAS UNCOVERED THAT THE EARLY church's ethics were firmly rooted in Jewish halakhic thinking. This essay explores the topic through a study of the church's moral reasoning in Acts 10—15. We see the church readily employing distinctions that are now rarely invoked by Christian ethicists, such as between universal and particular moral law. These distinctions allowed the church to understand the ethical significance of the Torah not by imposing external categories on it but through the Torah's own, (...) internal distinctions. Thus, the church's understanding of the Torah can best be understood through the image of geirei toshav. This image could help Christian ethicists understand their relation to pluralistic contexts because it was precisely the increased pluralism of gentile inclusion that prompted the church in Acts. I briefly consider the implications for a concrete case: the Episcopal-Anglican Communion's debate about homosexuality, which employs the Acts 10—15 narrative. (shrink)

In dit stimulerende en diepgravende boek onderzoekt John D. Caputo het religieuze denken. Tijdens dit onderzoek komen fascinerende vragen aan de orde: 'Wat heb ik lief als ik God liefheb?' en 'Wat heeft Star Wars ons te zeggen over de huidige beleving van religie?' (proberen we altijd een manier te vinden om te zeggen: 'God zij met je'?) Waarom betekent religie voor zoveel mensen een moreel houvast in een postmoderne, nihilistische tijd? Is het mogelijk om 'religie zonder religie' te (...) hebben? Via een bespreking van enkele huidige beelden van religie, zoals Robert Duvall's film The Apostle , biedt Caputo ook een aantal fascinerende en originele inzichten in religieus fundamentalisme. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to reconstruct and present in a critical perspective the main methodological devices of John Rawls’ Political Liberalism, which introduces the idea of the overlapped consensus as a way to guarantee, in a political sense, social justice within contemporary democratic societies. Those methodological devices are presented in order to reveal their conceptual failures when contrasted with real world situations and to indicate three elements: a) the psychologism of the theory which reduces the individuals of (...) the comprehensive doctrines to an inhuman procedural forgetting of the historical facticity that defines them and provides them with meaning and identity; b) how unfair the overlapped consensus might be, considering that it is developed without taking into account the doctrines and at the expenses of the historical processes for power and struggles for recognition of such doctrines; iii) the limited reach of the methodological devices when applied to the real world, i.e., that when those devices are faced with the realities of the doctrines they lack practical justification. Because of that, liberalism should be considered as another tradition which struggles with the doctrines. (shrink)

OBVIOUSLY, OBSERVERS EXIST ONLY WHERE LIFE IS POSSIBLE ("THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE"). NOW, THERE MAY BE MANY COSMIC REGIONS, PERHAPS GIGANTIC AND LARGELY OR ENTIRELY SEPARATE "MULTIPLE UNIVERSES," OF WHICH ONLY VERY FEW PERMIT LIFE’S EVOLUTION. GUTH’S COSMIC INFLATION MAY BE INVOLVED HERE, AND DOMAINS WITH DIFFERENTLY BROKEN SYMMETRIES. APPARENT LIFE-ENCOURAGING FINE-TUNING OF NATURAL CONSTANTS MIGHT BE UNDERSTOOD AGAINST THIS BACKGROUND. MANY SCIENTISTS PREDICTIONS RESULT. AN ALTERNATIVE ACCOUNT SPEAKS OF THE WORLD’S CREATIVE ETHICAL REQUIREDNESS ("GOD").

What demands must be met for phenomenology to be the rigorous science Husserl projected? Janicaud complains that some French phenomenologists, while pretending to observe these demands, play fast and loose with them when they apply phenomenology to matters of theology: Derrida, Marion, and Levinas; methodological phenomenology and Henry's phenomenology of the Christian Way. Derrida's deconstructions of the oppositions of immanence and transcendence and of the factual and the transcendental suggest that the rift between him and Henry is not as deep (...) as it must at first seem. Analogical appresentation is a motive of the theological turn. (shrink)

John Locke, Marylène Delbourg-Delphis. (56) — SIC COGITAVIT DE INTELLECTU HUMANO JO LOCKE AN 1671. INTELLECTUS HUMANUS CUM COGNITIONIS CERTITUDINE, ET ASSENSUS FIRMITATE. § 1. 1° J'imagine que toute ...

Le livre III de l’Essai de Locke passe pour un des textes importants que la fin du XVIIe siècle consacre exclusivement au langage. Mais il ne faut pas s’attendre à y trouver un traité de linguistique innovant dans un champ vierge; même si Locke découvre tardivement l’importance du nom dans le savoir, il lui est facile de trouver autour de lui suffisamment de travaux pour prendre position, critiquer, simplifier, réorienter. Réorienter car son étude du nom ne vise qu’à préparer un (...) traité de la connaissance, non à faire de la linguistique pour elle-même. Il simplifie de ce fait les travaux que le Scolastique nominaliste notamment avait multipliés. Il critique tous ceux qui dissocient le mot de la double “référence” qui lui est “naturelle” : l’idée et la chose; contre Hobbes mais aussi contre les théoriciens des langues universelles, il ancre les langues dans l’usage commun d’une part, dans le rapport incertain aux choses d’autre part, toujours par la médiation de la pensée individuelle. Il prend enfin position : le nom est l’instrument privilégié de l’abstraction et de la généralisation : indispensable pour la communication et l’accumulation du savoir, il est aussi le lieu de toutes les illusions. Par son approche des espèces naturelles, par sa critique de l’essentialisme qui restaure paradoxalement l’abstrait et l’universel, par sa réduction du langage à la communication d’informations, plus que par sa théorie linguistique, ce texte nous donne encore à penser. (shrink)

Literary realism might be defined in terms of contemporary cultural values as a dramatization of existential assumptions that are shared by the artist and his audience.