This article examines the way in which some biomedical ethicists have constructed sexually transmitted AIDS as a significant threat to women's health. We demonstrate that the familiar claim that‘women are the fastest growing group'— whether of HIV-infected or of AIDS patients — is misleading because it obscures the distinction between proportional rate of growth and absolute increase. Feminist ethicists have suggested that misogyny of a male dominated health care system has led to underreporting of women AIDS cases in order to (...) support these feminists’claim of AIDS being a real threat to women's health. Given the apparent rarity of tertiary transmissions of AIDS, the assertion that most or even many women are at significant risk for AIDS seem wrong. Particularly disturbing in this campaign is the fact that the theme of‘risky sex’has been extended all the way to lesbians, even though their risk to acquire AIDS sexually is non-existent to minuscule. We argue that actual harm is done to women by this exaggeration of their risk of contracting AIDS sexually. The scare has led to misappropriations of scarce health care funds. AIDS disproportionately affects women who inject drugs, and who suffer other diseases, poverty and malnutrition. It would have been better to concentrate health care efforts in this area instead of‘educating’women not at risk for AIDS how to prevent the acquisition of this disease. Unjustifiable AIDS anxiety has been created in women and has resulted in millions of unnecessary HIV-tests, and many broken relationships. This anxiety has inevitably reduced the pleasure of having sex for many women. We reject the kind of‘victim ideology’that lies at the heart of this strategy which has, unfortunately, been supported by a number of influential feminist ethicists. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article examines the way in which some biomedical ethicists have constructed sexually transmitted AIDS as a significant threat to women's health. We demonstrate that the familiar claim that‘women are the fastest growing group'— whether of HIV‐infected or of AIDS patients — is misleading because it obscures the distinction between proportional rate of growth and absolute increase. Feminist ethicists have suggested that misogyny of a male dominated health care system has led to underreporting of women AIDS cases in order to (...) support these feminists’claim of AIDS being a real threat to women's health. Given the apparent rarity of tertiary transmissions of AIDS, the assertion that most or even many women are at significant risk for AIDS seem wrong. Particularly disturbing in this campaign is the fact that the theme of‘risky sex’has been extended all the way to lesbians, even though their risk to acquire AIDS sexually is non‐existent to minuscule. We argue that actual harm is done to women by this exaggeration of their risk of contracting AIDS sexually. The scare has led to misappropriations of scarce health care funds. AIDS disproportionately affects women who inject drugs, and who suffer other diseases, poverty and malnutrition. It would have been better to concentrate health care efforts in this area instead of‘educating’women not at risk for AIDS how to prevent the acquisition of this disease. Unjustifiable AIDS anxiety has been created in women and has resulted in millions of unnecessary HIV‐tests, and many broken relationships. This anxiety has inevitably reduced the pleasure of having sex for many women. We reject the kind of‘victim ideology’that lies at the heart of this strategy which has, unfortunately, been supported by a number of influential feminist ethicists. (shrink)

I examine a problem or dilemma of legitimation faced by the critical theorist who takes as the object of his or her critique a totality of which she or he is a part. The dilemma is that the theorist must either illegitimately exempt her critical theory from the determining influences of the totality or lose normative authority. The critics I examine in detail are: Adorno and Horkheimer; Kant; Hegel; feminist standpoint epistemologists, in particular, Sandra Harding; Irigaray; Foucault; and Arendt. ;I (...) conclude that a purely theoretical or epistemic ground for the legitimacy of totalizing critique is impossible; philosophical critique must involve an extra-rational faith or a political commitment. However, I also argue that the project of theoretical grounding should not be abandoned. I continue this project by drawing out of the critical theorists I examined some preliminary concepts and strategies that may, after further development, serve to provide a theory of the legitimacy of critical philosophy. (shrink)

This article examines the way in which some biomedical ethicists have constructed sexually transmitted AIDS as a significant threat to women's health. We demonstrate that the familiar claim that‘women are the fastest growing group'— whether of HIV‐infected or of AIDS patients — is misleading because it obscures the distinction between proportional rate of growth and absolute increase. Feminist ethicists have suggested that misogyny of a male dominated health care system has led to underreporting of women AIDS cases in order to (...) support these feminists’claim of AIDS being a real threat to women's health. Given the apparent rarity of tertiary transmissions of AIDS, the assertion that most or even many women are at significant risk for AIDS seem wrong. Particularly disturbing in this campaign is the fact that the theme of‘risky sex’has been extended all the way to lesbians, even though their risk to acquire AIDS sexually is non‐existent to minuscule. We argue that actual harm is done to women by this exaggeration of their risk of contracting AIDS sexually. The scare has led to misappropriations of scarce health care funds. AIDS disproportionately affects women who inject drugs, and who suffer other diseases, poverty and malnutrition. It would have been better to concentrate health care efforts in this area instead of‘educating’women not at risk for AIDS how to prevent the acquisition of this disease. Unjustifiable AIDS anxiety has been created in women and has resulted in millions of unnecessary HIV‐tests, and many broken relationships. This anxiety has inevitably reduced the pleasure of having sex for many women. We reject the kind of‘victim ideology’that lies at the heart of this strategy which has, unfortunately, been supported by a number of influential feminist ethicists. (shrink)

The Forum and the Tower tackles a fascinating and perennial topic: the relationship between the academy and the world of politics. The accomplished Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon traces this crucial relationship from Classical Greece taking readers through the Roman Empire, Renaissance Italy, the English revolution, the Federalist era in the US, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars, the Concert of Europe, the progressive era, and the New Deal/World War II era.

Mary Anne Warren investigates a theoretical question that is at the centre of practical and professional ethics: what are the criteria for having moral status? That is: what does it take to be an entity towards which people have moral considerations? Warren argues that no single property will do as a sole criterion, and puts forward seven basic principles which establish moral status. She then applies these principles to three controversial moral issues: voluntary euthanasia, abortion, and the status of (...) non-human animals. (shrink)

La renommée nationale et internationale de Pierre Bourdieu lui est venue de la sociologie, une sociologie un peu particulière, dite " des élites ", ou plus communément, " de la domination ", au fil de laquelle il ne se fit pas faute de fustiger les représentants de celle qu'il appelait " La discipline du couronnement ", la philosophie. C'était là pourtant son terroir d'origine, sa formation première, et la seule dans laquelle il possédât un diplôme. Mais il ne voyait dans (...) ses anciens " collègues " que des lectors figés dans une position scolastique qui les éloignait des urgences du monde et du " sens pratique ". Pourtant, c'est à l'aide de La philosophie qu'il critique la philosophie, et vise à l'éduquer, qu'il forge les concepts majeurs de sa sociologie, comme l'habitus, la violence symbolique. Et l'enjeu de ses recherches est encore un enjeu philosophique, qui le rapproche de ceux qui ont voulu transformer le monde, au lieu de se borner à le penser. (shrink)

Mary Anne Perkins re-examines Coleridge's claim to have developed a "logosophic" system which attempted "to reduce all knowledges into harmony." She pays particular attention to his later writings, some of which are still unpublished. She suggests that the accusations of plagiarism and of muddled, abstruse metaphysics which have been levelled at him may be challenged by a thorough reading of his work in which its unifying principle is revealed. She explores the various meanings of the term "logos," a recurrent (...) theme in every area of Coleridge's thought--philosophy, religion, natural science, history, political and social criticism, literary theory, and psychology. Coleridge was responding to the concerns of his own time, a revolutionary age in which increasing intellectual and moral fragmentation and confusion seemed to him to threaten both individuals and society. Drawing on the whole of Western intellectual history, he offered a ground for philosophy which was relational rather than mechanistic. He is one of those few thinkers whose work appears to become more interesting and his perceptions more acute as the historical gulf widens. This book is a contribution to the reassessment that he deserves. (shrink)

In the Philippines, all transplant centers are mandated by the Department of Health (DOH) to have a Hospital Transplant Ethics Committee (HTEC) to ensure that donations are altruistic, voluntary and free of coercion/commercial transactions. This study was undertaken primarily to describe the organizational and functional profile of existing HTECs and identify areas for improvement. This is a descriptive cross‐sectional study. There was variation in their logistical arrangements (support from hospital, filing systems, office spaces), operations (length and frequency of meetings, number (...) of referrals) and membership (composition, qualifications, occupation, training). The approval rate for donor‐recipient pairs is high with the majority of cases made by living non‐related donors. Appropriate reasons were cited for rejection. The perception of HTECs is that they are competent and confident in their decision‐making. However, there is a need to standardize HTEC composition, provide operating procedures and additional training which can be done by the DOH. (shrink)

Here is, we think, the point. It doesn't matter for what reason the writer or painter or lover destroys the creation: the real point is that destruction itself, like a gigantic statement. It is, in fact, something of an excitation, a stimulation to further thought: what is this ACTION about?' What do Stéphane Mallarmé, Antonin Artaud, Meret Oppenheim, Asger Jorn, Yoko Ono, Tom Phillips and Martin Arnold have in common? Whereas a wealth of critics have diagnosed contemporary art's preoccupations with (...) madness, depression and self-abuse as well as its tendency to cultivate an (anti- )aesthetics of the negative, the excremental and the abject (say, from the Vienna Action Group to Serrano, McCarthy or Delvoye), much less attention has been paid to how modern and contemporary artists and public have thrived on the destruction, disfiguration and obliteration of work by the artists and/or by that of others. From Artaud's 'terminal' notebooks to the recent upsurge in 'erasure poetics', the history of 'undoing' art deserves to be recounted in a positive mode and rescued from popular narratives of the decline and death of the avant-garde. (shrink)

_Jung and the Human Psyche: An Understandable Introduction_ presents a comprehensive introduction to Jungian theory, taking the reader through the major themes of Jung's work in a clear way, relating such concepts to individual experience. Drawing on her extensive experience in practicing and teaching Jungian psychology, Mary Ann Mattoon succeeds in making the fundamental insights of Jung's work accessible. The major topics of Jungian psychology are presented in a manner that is clear, emotionally engaging, well illustrated and non-dogmatic. Areas (...) covered include: The visible psyche: ego, persona, typology. The hidden psyche: self, shadow, unconscious, archetypes, instincts. Becoming who we are: early development, gender. Obstacles and helps to growth: complexes, projection, psychopathology. Helps from the psyche: psychic energy, self-regulation/compensation, symbol, synchronicity, creativity. _Jung and the Human Psyche_ provides an original and imaginative introduction to Jung's work, and will appeal to students of Jungian psychology, those considering training in Jungian analysis, and anyone interested in Jungian psychology. (shrink)

The classification of clinical problems, such as AIDS, requires choices. Choices are made on epistemic (i.e., knowledge-based) and non-epistemic (i.e., action-based) grounds. That is, the ways in which we classify clinical problems, such as AIDS, involve a balancing of different understandings of clinical reality and of clinical values among participants of the clinical community. On this view, the interplay between epistemic and non-epistemic interests occurs within the embrace of particular clinical contexts.The ways in which we classify AIDS is the topic (...) of this paper. We consider the extent to which we construct clinical reality; we examine a suggested classification of AIDS; and we conclude suggesting that the choice regarding how to classify AIDS is the result of negotiation among participants in the clinical community. (shrink)

L'A. s'inquiète au sujet du tour que prend le projet de la déclaration universelle des droits de l'homme depuis quelques années, notamment dans son recours croissant au domaine international. Il expose la vision de 1948 de ce projet, puis prend en compte le fait que la protection familiale se déconstruit pour enfin envisager le rôle des catholiques dans le projet des droits universels des droits de l'homme.

"Readers interested in feminist studies, applied ethics, or social and political philosophy should find Gendercide especially interesting and informative. Highly recommended."-CHOICE.