The question whether rights to health care should be altered by smoking behaviour involves wideranging implications for all who indulge in hazardous behaviours, and involves complex economic utilitarian arguments. This paper examines current debate in the UK and suggest the major significance of the controversy has been ignored. That this discussion exists at all implies increasing division over the scope and purpose of a nationalised health service, bestowing health rights on all. When individuals bear the cost of their own health (...) care, they appear to take responsibility for health implications of personal behaviour, but when the state bears the cost, moral obligations of the community and its doctors to care for those who do not value health are called into question. The debate has far-reaching implications as ethical problems of smokers' rights to health care are common to situations where health as a value comes into conflict with other values, such as pleasure or wealth. (shrink)

The British Government is implementing some major alterations to the way health services in Great Britain are organised. As well as the introduction of competition between health care providers, their financial interests are to be linked to their output, in efforts to use market forces to increase efficiency and cut costs. This paper looks at the possible impact of these changes of health care organisation on ethical medical practice. This is investigated with particular reference to the country whose health service (...) has embraced most closely these elements of the market--the United States of America. The question to be answered is whether high standards of ethical care are ensured by factors somehow intrinsic to the medical profession, and are therefore immune to changes in the economics of health care. This assumption is shown to be questionable in light of what is known about the determinants of ethical medical practice. (shrink)

A conference celebrating the tercentenary of the publication of Leibniz’s Nouveau système will be held at the University of York, England, under the auspices of the Leibniz Gesellschaft of Hannover, and in collaboration with the British Society for the History of Philosophy, the Leibniz Society of North America, and the Lessico Intellettuale Europeo in Rome. Speakers will include R. M. Adams, S. Brown, G. Hartz, A. Lamarra, G. M. Ross, M. Mugnai, R. Palaia, G.H.R. Parkinson, P. Phemister, H. Poser, D. (...) Rutherford, C. Wilson. For further details contact Roger Woolhouse, Department of Philosophy, University of York, England Y01 5DD. (shrink)

In this paper I combine the embodiment thesis with extended mind theory by introducing a unique theory on consciousness based on one of the most neglected philosophers: Von Hartmann. There will be a discussion based on two contemporary debates within the field of cognition: the computational theory versus the embodied theory of mind and consciousness versus unconsciousness. With the help of the theory of Von Hartmann, I will ask the question why we are unconscious -- as both Von Hartmann and (...) contemporary neuroscientists suggest -- and whether consciousness should be a state of the brain or mind alone. Subsequently, I will present the argument that consciousness is every physiological state and that the body continuously creates ideas. Following extended cognition theorists, the suggestion will be made that the environment can shape these ideas. This will result in a critique against the contemporary emphasis on the unconscious will. (shrink)

Irani takes a strongly thematic and interpretive approach to Plato's dialogues by working through a system of interdependent concepts and arguments that are central to understanding Plato's views on philosophy, its value, and methods. One may approach the network of themes in various ways, but a natural starting point is with the preface, introduction, and Irani's description of the book as "primarily a work of interpretation" of two Platonic dialogues that constitute its subject matter, the Gorgias and Phaedrus.In the introduction, (...) Irani sets up a frame conversation based on the Phaedo in which Socrates urges those in his company to resist feeling hatred for arguments, using the analogy... (shrink)

Study on the Qurʼānic teaching for ideal society.

An important fragment of the lost portion of Aristotle's Poetics is the definition of synonyms preserved by Simplicius, which corresponds to Aristotle's own citation of the Poetics for synonyms in the Rhetoric, 3. 2.1404b 37 ff. I shall argue elsewhere that this derives from a discussion of the sources of verbal humour in the lost account of comedy and humour. Here it is my aim to show that Simplicius definitely derived the quotation from Porphyry, which pushes back the attestation of (...) this part of the Poetics by more than two centuries . Furthermore, I shall show that some of the words in the definition are a gloss added by Porphyry for the purposes of his own polemic. (shrink)

In Europe a process of harmonisation of standards and regulations on genetic testing has started. Public discussion and consultation are recommended, but it is not clear in every European country how the decision making process as regards the further introduction of genetic testing services should be formed. In this paper the usefulness and importance of an overseeing body for genetic screening and testing is founded on four lines of reasoning: analysis of the role of value judgments in the use of (...) the concept of abnormality; a balancing of potential benefits for all parties involved; a balancing of potential disadvantages, and the greater availability of commercial genetic tests in the future. It is further argued that such an overseeing body has advantages for all the interested parties. (shrink)

The Primacy of God, the notion of justice toward God is seldom considered and often foreign. Far more discussed is how God might either undermine or motivate social justice. The Primacy of God by R. Jared Staudt offers an important intervention. With the aid of St. Thomas Aquinas, Staudt argues that it is vital for both contemporary society and contemporary Catholic theology to return to the traditional view of God as the one to whom all human and social action must (...) be ordered and to recover the virtue of religion as the virtue which orders all other virtues to God. Not only does Staudt helpfully remind readers of the ancient philosophical and biblical notion of worship as a dictate of the natural law, he also illuminates the way in which Christian liturgy, as an enactment of Christ's high priesthood, is the great fulfillment of natural and biblical worship. Accordingly, Staudt secures religion as essential for the virtue of love. This brings Staudt to criticize modern theologians like Karl Barth, who claimed that religion is inherently idolatrous, as well as Karl Rahner, who claimed that love of neighbor is the highest moral act. Staudt also considers the question of religious truth in light of the plurality of religions, soliciting the assistance of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger, as well as the way in which religion relates to the development of culture, engaging the great Catholic social historian Christopher Dawson. The Primacy of God is a much-needed work that ought to set the agenda for Catholic theology in the twenty-first century. (shrink)