This book addresses critical issues in normative ethical theory. Every such theory must contain not only a theory of motivation but also a theory of value, and the link that is often forged between what is valuable and what would be right is human welfare or well-being. This topic is a subject of considerable controversy in contemporary ethics, not least because of the current reconsideration of utilitarianism. Indeed, there is as much disagreement about the nature of value and its relationship (...) to welfare and morality, as there is about the substantive content of normative ethical theories. The essays in this collection, all written by a distinguished team of moral philosophers, provide an overview, analysis and an attempted resolution of those controversies. They constitute a rigorous account of the relationships among value, welfare and morality. (shrink)

This is a comprehensive study of the varying conceptions of the human subject in the Western intellectual tradition. Although informed by an anthropological perspective, the author draws on material from all the major intellectual disciplines that have contributed to this tradition and offers biographical and theoretical vignettes of all the major Western scholars. By scrutinizing the classical texts of the Western tradition, he succeeds in delineating the differing conceptions of the human individual which emerge from these writings, and gives a (...) guide to the most important ideas in Western cultural traditions. (shrink)

Objective The UK Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine programme commenced in the autumn of 2008 for year 8 (age 12–13 years) schoolgirls. We examine whether the vaccine should be given when there is a difference of opinion between daughters and parents or guardians. Design Qualitative study using semi-structured interviews. Participants A sample of 25 stakeholders: 14 professionals involved in the development of the HPV vaccination programme and 11 professionals involved in its implementation. Results Overriding the parents' wishes was perceived as problematic (...) and could damage the relationship between school and parents. A number of practical problems were raised in relation to establishing whether parents were genuinely against their daughter receiving the vaccine. Although many respondents recognised that the Gillick guidelines were relevant in establishing whether a girl could provide consent herself, they still felt that there were significant problems in establishing whether girls could be assessed as Gillick competent. In some areas school nurses had been advised not to give the vaccine in the absence of parental consent. None of the respondents suggested that a girl should be vaccinated against her consent even if her parents wanted her to have the vaccine. Conclusions While the Gillick guidelines provide a legal framework to help professionals make judgements about adolescents consenting to medical treatment, in practice there appears to be variable and confused interpretation of this guidance. Improved legal structures, management procedures and professional advice are needed to support those who are assessing competence and establishing consent to vaccinate adolescents in a school setting. (shrink)

The discovery of the first intracellular substrate for insulin, IRS‐1, redirected the field of diabetes research and has led to many important advances in our understanding of insulin action. Detailed analysis of IRS‐1 demonstrates structure/function relationships for this modular docking molecule, including mechanisms of substrate recognition and signal propagation. Recent work has also identified other structurally similar molecules, including IRS‐2, the Drosophila protein, DOS, and the Grb2‐binding protein, Gab1, suggesting that this intracellular signalling strategy is conserved evolutionarily and is utilized (...) by an expanding number of receptor systems. In fact, IRS‐1 itself has been shown to be important in other growth factor and cytokine signalling systems, including growth hormone and several interleukins. Analysis of mice lacking IRS‐1 confirms an important physiological role for this protein in glucose metabolism and general cell growth in the intact animal. Disregulation of the signalling pathways integrated by the IRS proteins may contribute to the pathophysiology of non‐insulin‐dependent diabetes mellitus or other diseases. (shrink)

Virtue and Irony in American Democracy: Revisiting Dewey and Niebuhr offers original, accessible democratic-virtue readings of Dewey and Niebuhr, showing implications for political responses to economic inequality on the basis of the virtues they imply. It includes an innovative critique of the Dewey/Niebuhr debate, arguing that these two prominent theorists of democracy failed to exhibit an important form of tolerance in their engagement with each other.

This essay contextualises Wittgenstein’s remarks on aspect-seeing in connection with his reading of Wolfgang Köhler, and thereby within a wider discussion of seeing. Most commentators devote little attention to the use of ‘see’ with which aspect-seeing is contrasted. It tends to be interpreted in the literature in two contrasting ways which, the author suggests, could be lined up with Köhler’s distinction between ‘analytic’ and ‘normal’ modes of perception, corresponding to a distinction between ‘seeing shapes and colours’ and ‘seeing things’. It (...) is argued that Wittgenstein’s ‘aspect-seeing’ use of ‘see’ contrasts differently with each of these. Moreover, it is argued that these three uses of ‘see’ work differently in the context of looking at pictures and looking at the world. Finally, it is suggested that understanding Wittgenstein’s claim that seeing an aspect is ‘seeing a meaning’ is an invitation to contemplate what would be missing from the life of the aspect-blind; and it is suggested that seeing a thingis likewise ‘seeing a meaning’. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty's Developmental Ontology shows how the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, from its very beginnings, seeks to find sense or meaning within nature, and how this quest calls for and develops into a radically new ontology. -/- David Morris first gives an illuminating analysis of sense, showing how it requires understanding nature as engendering new norms. He then presents innovative studies of Merleau-Ponty's The Structure of Behavior and Phenomenology of Perception, revealing how these early works are oriented by the problem (...) of sense and already lead to difficulties about nature, temporality, and ontology that preoccupy Merleau-Ponty's later work. Morris shows how resolving these difficulties requires seeking sense through its appearance in nature, prior to experience—ultimately leading to radically new concepts of nature, time, and philosophy. -/- Merleau-Ponty's Developmental Ontology makes key issues in Merleau-Ponty's philosophy clear and accessible to a broad audience while also advancing original philosophical conclusions. (shrink)

Quine's set theory, New Foundations, has often been treated as an anomaly in the history and philosophy of set theory. In this book, Sean Morris shows that it is in fact well-motivated, emerging in a natural way from the early development of set theory. Morris introduces and explores the notion of set theory as explication: the view that there is no single correct axiomatization of set theory, but rather that the various axiomatizations all serve to explicate the notion (...) of set and are judged largely according to pragmatic criteria. Morris also brings out the important interplay between New Foundations, Quine's philosophy of set theory, and his philosophy more generally. We see that his early technical work in logic foreshadows his later famed naturalism, with his philosophy of set theory playing a crucial role in his primary philosophical project of clarifying our conceptual scheme and specifically its logical and mathematical components. (shrink)

This work stresses the illogical manner in which mathematics has developed, the question of applied mathematics as against 'pure' mathematics, and the challenges to the consistency of mathematics' logical structure that have occurred in the twentieth century.

Colin Morris traces the origin of the concept of the individual, not to the Renaissance where it is popularly assumed to have been invented, but farther back, ...

This volume brings together a group of essays that examine the relationship between philosophy and literature - disciplines that have been opposed as often as they have been combined. While the focus is primarily on the plays of Shakespeare, there is a lengthy essay on the use of the style term maniera in art history, and a concluding survey and analysis of the relationship between philosophy and literature, from Plato to the present. The author applies the theory of meaning and (...) logical analysis to contemporary problems in the arts and aesthetics. (shrink)

This annotated critical edition is the first attempt to make Morris's 42,000-word verse sequence accessible to a modern audience.

Morris N. Eagle explores the understanding and role of subjective experience in the disciplines of psychology, psychoanalysis, and philosophy of mind. Elaborating how different understandings of subjective experience give rise to very different theories of the nature of the mind, Eagle then explains how these shape clinical practices. In particular, Eagle addresses the strong tendency in the disciplines concerned with the nature of the mind to overlook the centrality of subjective experience in one's life, to view it with suspicion, (...) and to reduce it to neural processes. Describing examples of research in which subjective experience is a central variable, Eagle provides an outline of a model in which the dichotomy of conscious and unconscious is supplemented by subjective experience as a continuum. This book is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, psychologists and anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of the importance of theories of the mind to therapeutic practice. (shrink)