This is a study of the development of Christian symbolic use of the Cross. Early depictions were anastasic, the empty cross symbolizing the resurrection and hiding the manner of Jesus’ death. As the Christian community itself became more violent, and first practiced and then justified the practice of war, the Crucifix showed Christ on the Cross increasingly graphically. The writer compares this with a set of images in and around the chapel at Central American University in San Salvador. The images (...) record a memory of suffering and terror. The article ends by locating the experience of writing about these images in the context of global grass-roots protest against the war in Iraq. (shrink)

Rita Nakashima Brock, Carter Heyward and Susan Thistlethwaite intend, in their respective theological projects, to create a vision of feminist eros uncomplicated by violence. They envision feminist eros as a means to bring theology back to earth and into the body, and encourage women to seek the good within themselves and their relationships with others. Brock, Heyward and Thistlethwaite resist social injustices, particularly the intertwined structures of patriarchy and multi-national capitalism. According to these feminist theologians, the (...) structures of injustice have sedimented into a seemingly intractable and unobserved geography of habits and attitudes. Brock, Heyward and Thistlethwaite want to expand theological imagination to territories that lie beyond these oppressive systems through a critical feminist perspective, and to recover possibilities inherent in a hitherto unattended and constant feature of the landscape, the connections between all that exists, inanimate, animate, animal, human. This revisioning constitutes a new and dynamic gospel of feminist eros. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that needs are tremendously salient in developing any plausible account of global justice. I begin by sketching a normative thought experiment that models ideal deliberating conditions. I argue that under such conditions we would choose principles of justice that ensure we are well positioned to be able to meet our needs. Indeed, as the experiment aims to show, any plausible account of distributive justice must make space for the special significance of our needs. I go (...) on to offer some empirical support for this view by looking at the important work of Frohlich and Oppenheimer. I then present an account of our basic needs that can meet a number of goals: for instance, it provides a robust theoretical account of basic needs which can enjoy widespread support, and it can also provide an adequate framework for designing policy about needs, and thus help us to discharge our global obligations. I then briefly discuss the relationship between basic needs and human rights, arguing why the basic needs standard is more fundamental than—and required by—the human rights approach. Finally, I tackle a few important sets of objections to my view, especially some objections concerning distributing our responsibilities for meeting needs. (shrink)

In spite of the wide variety of approaches to ethics training it is still debatable which approach has the highest potential to enhance professionals’ integrity. The current effort assesses a novel curriculum that focuses on metacognitive reasoning strategies researchers use when making sense of day-to-day professional practices that have ethical implications. The evaluated trainings effectiveness was assessed by examining five key sensemaking processes, such as framing, emotion regulation, forecasting, self-reflection, and information integration that experts and novices apply in ethical decision-making. (...) Mental models of trained and untrained graduate students, as well as faculty, working in the field of physical sciences were compared using a think-aloud protocol 6 months following the ethics training. Evaluation and comparison of the mental models of participants provided further validation evidence for sensemaking training. Specifically, it was found that trained students applied metacognitive reasoning strategies learned during training in their ethical decision-making that resulted in complex mental models focused on the objective assessment of the situation. Mental models of faculty and untrained students were externally-driven with a heavy focus on autobiographical processes. The study shows that sensemaking training has a potential to induce shifts in researchers’ mental models by making them more cognitively complex via the use of metacognitive reasoning strategies. Furthermore, field experts may benefit from sensemaking training to improve their ethical decision-making framework in highly complex, novel, and ambiguous situations. (shrink)

It is widely recognized that prioritizing health care resources by their relative cost-effectiveness can result in lower priority for the treatment of disabled persons than otherwise similar non-disabled persons. I distinguish six different ways in which this discrimination against the disabled can occur. I then spell out and evaluate the following moral objections to this discrimination, most of which capture an aspect of its unethical character: it implies that disabled persons' lives are of lesser value than those of non-disabled persons; (...) it constitutes “double jeopardy” or violates Frances Kamm's non-linkage principle; it conflicts with equality of opportunity; it conflicts with fairness, which requires ignoring (some/most) differential impacts of treatment; it wrongly gives lower priority to disabled persons for equally effective treatment; it conflicts with giving all persons an equal chance to reach their full potential; and, it is in conflict with giving priority to the worse off. (shrink)

Is there enough progress in philosophy? It is notable that even within the discipline, opinions are divided. Optimists think there is more than enough progress in philosophy. Pessimists think we could and should do better. In this chapter I defend an optimistic answer to this question.

The intense and extensive debate over human embryonic stem cell research has focused primarily on the moral status of the human embryo. Some commentators assign full moral status of normal adult human beings to the embryo from the moment of its conception. At the other extreme are those who believe that a human embryo has no significant moral status at the time it is used and destroyed in stem cell research. And in between are many intermediate positions that assign an (...) embryo some degree of moral status between none and full. This controversy and the respective positions, like the abortion controversy, is by now well understood, despite the lack of progress in resolving it. I have argued briefly elsewhere that early embryos do not have significant moral status, but I do not want to reenter that debate here. Instead, I want to focus on an issue that has had relatively little explicit and separate attention, but is likely to loom larger in light of the Obama administration’s partial lifting of the Bush administration’s restriction on the embryos that can be used in stem cell research that receives federal funding. (shrink)

In this paper I address the relation between just claims to health care and severe cognitive impairment from dementia. Two general approaches to justice in allocation of health care are distinguished – prudential allocation and interpersonal distribution. First, I analyze why a patient who has died has no further claims to health care. Second, I show why prudential allocators would not provide for health care treatment should they be in a persistent vegetative state. Third, I argue that the destruction of (...) personal identity from severe dementia implies that only claims to palliative, but not life-sustaining, health care remain. Finally, I argue that the prudential allocator approach is indeterminate regarding life-sustaining care for the moderately demented and that social policy should not deny that care to patients. Keywords: elderly, health care, the severely-demented, justice CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Frankfurt argues that there are two categories of needs that are at least prima facie morally important (relative to other claims). In this paper I examine Frankfurt's suggestion that two categories of needs, namely, nonvolitional and constrained volitional needs, are eligible for (at least prima facie) moral importance. I show both these categories to be defective because they do not necessarily meet Frankfurt's own criteria for what makes a need morally important. I suggest a further category of needs as being (...) a more promising 'moral importance indicator'. -/- . (shrink)

Our aims in this paper are: (1) to indicate some of the many ways in which needs are an important part of the moral landscape, (2) to show that the dominant contemporary moral theories cannot adequately capture the moral significance of needs, indeed, that the dominant theories are inadequate to the extent that they cannot accommodate the insights which attention to needs yield, (3) to offer some sketches that should be helpful to future cartographers charting the domain of morally significant (...) needs, and (4) to consider some anticipated objections to our project and offer some replies. (shrink)

If stem cell-based therapies are developed, we will likely confront a difficult problem of justice: for biological reasons alone, the new therapies might benefit only a limited range of patients. In fact, they might benefit primarily white Americans, thereby exacerbating long-standing differences in health and health care.

It is sometimes said that a society should be judged ethically by how it treats its least-fortunate or worst-off members. In one interpretation this is not a point about justice, but instead about moral virtues such as compassion and charity. In our response to the least fortunate among us, we display, or show that we lack, fundamental moral virtues of fellow feeling and concern for others in need. In a different interpretation, however, this point is about justice and a just (...) society—the justice of a society is shown especially in how it treats its least-fortunate members. (shrink)

In this article, we survey some current debates among cosmopolitans and their critics. We begin by surveying some distinctions typically drawn among kinds of cosmopolitanisms, before canvassing some of the diverse varieties of cosmopolitan justice, exploring positions on the content of cosmopolitan duties of justice, and a prominent debate between cosmopolitans and defenders of statist accounts of global justice. We then explore some common concerns about cosmopolitanism – such as whether cosmopolitan commitments are necessarily in tension with other affiliations people (...) typically have and how we should deal with issues concerning a perceived lack of authority in the global domain – and whether these can be addressed. We also look briefly at how the concern with feasibility has led some to take up the challenge of devising public policy that is cosmopolitan in outlook, before offering some concluding remarks on future directions in these debates. (shrink)

The formulation is persuasive. Yet clearly it does assert a necessary connection between any occurrence and its antecedents. In order for a different result to occur, there has to be a corresponding difference in the antecedents. This means that from any determinate set of antecedents, a single determinate result must follow. It is a formula for determinism. Anscombe wants to caution us not to take what it says for granted.

There has been much interest in cosmopolitan models of democracy in recent times. Arguably, the most developed of these is the model articulated by David Held, so it is not surprising that it has received the most attention and criticism. In this paper, I outline Held's model of cosmopolitan democracy and consider the objections Will Kymlicka raises to this account. I argue that Kymlicka's objections do not undermine Held's central claims and that Held's cosmopolitanism remains a very promising model that (...) deserves further attention. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for there being some deep connections between claims of desert and claims of need, despite the fact that these sorts of claims are frequently pitted against one another. I present an argument to show some conceptual links between desert and needs. Principles underlying why people are thought to be deserving entail principles which commit us to caring about others' needs. I also examine whether we can construct some coherent notion of desert and an argument for (...) why some can have goods on the basis of desert. Here again we find we are committed to a principle which entails that needs must be adequately accommodated if we care about desert. -/- . (shrink)

Competent adults should be permitted to determine the course of their own lives. We may try to influence them. We may ask them, perhaps even implore them, to change their minds. But in the end, they are in charge of their lives. They get to choose their careers, whether and whom to marry, whether to exercise, and whether to have surgery.This emphasis on respect for patients’ autonomy may seem to imply that allowing patients to make their own decisions should always (...) take precedence over other considerations. Given this presumption, there has been almost no discussion in the medical literature or elsewhere about how important this value is and whether it should sometimes be balanced against and give way to other values. This absence of guidance is especially problematic in cases where respect for patient autonomy conflicts with promoting patients’ clinical interests. (shrink)

Justice and Needs -/- Is it somehow a requirement of justice that we meet people's needs? So, for instance, do people in need of certain goods necessary to sustain life deserve help from those not (similarly) in need because this is a requirement of justice? According to two recent arguments (one offered by Wiggins and the other offered by Braybrooke), justice requires that needs be met. Wiggins uses a rights-based argument and Braybrooke deploys an argument which relies pivotally on the (...) concept of respect. In this article I examine these two strategies for arguing for a connection between justice and meeting needs and show that both strategies not only fail to establish that needs should be met, but, moreover, both strategies face substantial challenges if they are ever to be successful. -/- . (shrink)

Two important recent books on migration and justice argue for different approaches to how we should view borders. Alex Sager defends open borders, while Sarah Song argues for the rights of democratic communities to find their own balance between open and closed borders. While both authors present significant considerations in defence of their views, in this article I argue that a human-rights-oriented account of migration justice captures their strengths well while not sharing the weaknesses I identify with each. In addition, (...) the approach I favour offers some progressive pathways for holding each other to account in reducing migration injustice in our actual world, in ways that are both feasible and normatively compelling. (shrink)

The Ethics of Immigration is a wonderfully comprehensive and insightful journey through all the major contemporary ethical issues concerning immigration. Through this outstandingly well-crafted work, Carens builds a compelling case for many important positions on how we should treat migrants. Nevertheless, I believe there are some tensions in his arguments that could do with more analysis. I present some of these issues in this article. These include some important problems with arguments for the right to education for children of irregular (...) migrants and those concerning admission, his general position on refugees, and his views about what is required in order to treat temporary workers fairly. (shrink)

We argue that Bohrian complementarity is a framework for making new ontological sense of scientific findings. It provides a conceptual pattern for making sense of the results of an empirical investigation into new realms or fields of natural properties. The idea of “formation length” engenders this mutual attunement of evidence and reality. Physicists want to be able to ascribe ontological features to atomic constituents and atomic processes such as “emission”, “impact”, or “change of energy-state”. These expressions supposedly refer to “local” (...) forms of physical change that in sum constitute the possibility of there being a “global” (for example an atomic) system of possible states. We argue that it is only because we can act it out in the design of experiments that we canmake sense of the link between classical and quantum theoretical systems. We need the notion of formation length in order to express the principle that the atom is a causal unity. This not in the sense of being the ground for a particular kind of causality, but in the sense of unifying the grounds for the variety of causal manifestations that constitutes the atom. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: An Ethical Framework for Treatment Decision‐making Futile Treatment Ordinary and Extraordinary Treatment Killing and Allowing to Die Treating Pain and the Doctrine of Double Effect Conclusion References Further reading.

Does St Thomas Aquinas have anything to teach us on the subject of atheism? We might doubt it, even if we share his basic outlook. The reason would be the very fact that in his day there were so few who did not share it. It was, as they say, an age of faith. The profession of some sort of religious belief, indeed monotheism, was virtually universal, not just in Europe but in practically all of what Europeans then knew of (...) the world. No doubt there were individual cases of "godlessness". The learned would also have known something about atheistic philosophies in pagan antiquity. But on the whole, the medievals seem to have had little incentive to take atheism very seriously. It hardly comes as a surprise to find that St Thomas's own writings contain no thematic treatment of it. Only in modernity does "serious" atheism seem to resurface. (shrink)

In my article above, I cite an earlier article by Frances Kamm, ‘Deciding Whom to Help, Health-Adjusted Life Years, and Disabilities’, in Public Health, Ethics, and Equity, eds. S. Anand, F. Peters, and A. Sen circulated as a working paper of the Center for Population Studies, Harvard University). However, I failed to correctly identify her position on one view that she took up in that article, and also failed to cite a proposal she developed in that article similar to one (...) I took up in my paper. (shrink)

In this critical discussion of Simon Caney's global political theory, I focus on two broad areas. In the first area, I consider Caney's suggestions concerning global equality of opportunity and note several problems with how we might develop these ideas. Some of the problems concern aggregation, while others point to difficulties with what equality of opportunity means in a culturally plural world, where different societies might value, construct, and rank goods in different ways. In the second broad area of criticism (...) I argue that Caney has been unfair to contractarians and I rally to their defense. (shrink)

In this article, drawing on the discursive psychology of Rom Harré, we show how mapping the exchange of words among people might disclose a complex reality; not merely that which farmers explicitly talk ‘about’ but the reality implicitly at stake within the communication. More specifically, we show how discourses involving modern farmers reveal an underlying placing in an abstract space, having sub-spaces defined by the life-orientation, sense of self and according self-positioning of modern people. In this way, we construct a (...) road map of a set of ‘individualities’ characterizing the life of modern farmers: an individuality of citizenship, an individuality of geographies and an individuality of experience. Consequently, farmers face the problem that this multiplicity of individuality prevents them from communicating, as we will call it, univocally in the public by contrast to the univocal voices of other established social groups. We will analyse the structure of that problem by viewing diverse relations between the authority and the authenticity of different partners in the conversation on land use. (shrink)

Existing literature on counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) has focused on the influence that interpersonal and organizational factors have on predicting said behavior. However, more recent studies have begun to explore the dimensionality of CWB in relation to the likelihood of coworkers reporting coworkers’ CWBs. Likelihood of reporting CWB across various types of CWB, and the relationships between self-reported CWB were assessed across two studies. The studies did so utilizing two different measures of CWB and two different measures of CWB reporting, (...) and found very similar results. Results suggest those employees who report one type of CWB behavior would also be more willing to report other types of CWBs, and those who have lower self-reported CWB are more likely to report CWB. (shrink)

Gillian Brock develops a model of global justice that takes seriously the moral equality of all human beings notwithstanding their legitimate diverse identifications and affiliations. She addresses concerns about implementing global justice, showing how we can move from theory to feasible public policy that makes progress toward global justice.

A firestorm of deals and debt consumed corporate America during the 1980s. Some contend that this deal mania, and the junk debt that fueled it, enhanced the nation's economic performance and bolstered its global competitiveness. Viewed in the context of its aftermath, however, the evidence suggests that a decade of junk‐debt deals subverted economic performance, weakened the country's economy and rendered it dangerously vulnerable to recession, and inflicted a massive opportunity cost vis‐à‐vis America's foreign rivals.

Se analizan algunas de las trayectorias de configuración de nuevas prácticas políticas juveniles en Brasil y considerar los acontecimientos estético-culturales como lugares posibles de constitución de acciones políticas en la contemporaneidad. A partir de un recorte histórico "marcos y acontecimient..

In this paper I argue that if we are to have any defensible property rights at all, we must recognize a fundamental commitment to helping those in need. The argument has significant implications for all who claim defensible property rights. In this paper I concentrate on some of the implications this argument has for redefining business obligations. In particular, I show why those who typically would be quite resistant to the idea that businesses have any obligations to assist others in (...) need must acknowledge this fundamental obligation. I also suggest how this argument contributes to our understanding of the normative basis of Stakeholder Theory. (shrink)