Los niños con malformaciones congénitas que antes eran incompatibles con la vida, ahora pueden mantenerse en vida, pero habitualmente el defecto subyacente y sus consecuencias no pueden mejorarse. Durante este periodo surge el dilema de reanimar, continuar un tratamiento agresivo, o bien no tomarninguna actitud activa ante un determinado caso. Por eso, muchos neonatólogos se plantean ahora una aplicación selectiva de las opciones terapéuticas (lo que algunos llaman tratamiento selectivo). Sin embargo, algunos problemas estrictamente médicos hacen dificil la aplicación de (...) un tratamiento selectivo neonatal. En primer lugar, es complicado establecer un diagnóstico preciso en un rn. En segundo lugar, el pronóstico es muchas veces incierto. En tercerlugar, la actuación médica es en muchas ocasiones urgente y no puede demorarse salvo a costa de disminuir las posibilidades de supervivencia o aumentar el riesgo de secuelas posteriores en el niño. Por ahora, no hay critérios médicos fiables para valorar en la sala de parto si un prematuro extremo de bajo peso (PEBP) en concreto sobrevivirá. Si sobrevive es poco posible predecir si será normal o quedará leve o gravemente dañado. Por consihuiente, por una parte,para algunos niños un tratamiento agresivo no sólo no se puede probar que sea beneficioso, sino que incluso puede serles perjudicial. Por otra parte podemos pensar que un bebé no tratado enérgicamente podría haber sobrevivido razonablemente intacto con la aplicación de una terapia más agresiva. Es un dilema cruél. Las opciones pueden estar no tanto entre "correctos" e "incorrectos" absolutos, como entre bienes y daños mayores o menores. (shrink)

Virginia Held, best known for her landmark book Rights and Goods, has made an indelible mark on the fields of ethics, feminist philosophy, and social and political thought. Her impact on a generation of feminist thinkers is unrivaled and she has been at the forfront of discussions about the way in which an ethic of care can affect social and political matters. These new essays by leading contemporary philosophers range over all of these areas. While each stands alone, the essays (...) together demonstrate the lasting value of Held's work to the field. Includes an afterword by Held. (shrink)

Dieser Beitrag bietet eine umfassende Diskussion des Textes “Humanismus und Christentum” (1950) des dänischen Philosophen und Theologen Knud E. Løgstrup. Er verortet den Text in seinem geistesgeschichtlichen Kontext und analysiert seine wichtigsten Argumente wie auch seine zentrale These, der zufolge Humanismus und Christentum einen entscheidenden Grundsatz teilen, insofern beide die Ethik als “stumm“ oder “unausgesprochen“ verstehen. Darüber hinaus wird dargelegt, wie Løgstrups Text zentrale Überlegungen in dessen späteren Publikationen, besonders in dem Hauptwerk Die ethische Forderung (1956), vorwegnimmt.

Although touch frequently occurs in psychotherapy with children, there is little written on the ethical considerations of therapeutic touch. Because physical contact does occur, therapists must consider if, how, and when it is used, for both their clients' safety and their own. In this review, I further develop the issues suggested by Aquino and Lee (2000) in the use of nurturing touch in therapy by considering many types of touch that occur in psychotherapy with children; the possible positive role of (...) touch; clients' perception of touch in therapy; considerations related to the therapist, the child's safety, and any history of abuse in the child's and family's background; and other practical considerations. I list guidelines. (shrink)

The relation between method, concept and theory in science is complicated. I seek to shed light on that relation by considering an instance of it in systematics: The additional challenges phylogeneticists face when reconstructing phylogeny not at a single level, but simultaneously at multiple levels of the hierarchy. How does this complicate the task of phylogenetic inference, and how might it inform and shape the conceptual foundations of phylogenetics? This offers a lens through which the interplay of method, theory and (...) concepts may be understood in systematics, which, in turn, provides data for a more general account. (shrink)

This discussion is grounded in Aristotelian–Thomistic realism and takes the position that nursing is a practical science. As an exposition of the title statement, distinctions are made between opinion and truth, and the speculative, productive and practical sciences. Sources of opinion and truth are described and a discussion follows that truth can be achieved through knowing principles and causes of the natural kind behind phenomena. It is proposed that humans are the natural kind behind nursing phenomena. Thus, human nature provides (...) proper principles (the truth) of nursing practice. (shrink)

In response to this pressing need, Integral Ecology unites valuable insights from multiple perspectives into a comprehensive theoretical framework-one that can ...

Study of Vedanta philosophy in the light of Pañcadaśi, verse compendium on Advaita philosophy by Madhva, 13th cent.

The emerging concept of systems medicine (or ‘P4 medicine’—predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory) is at the vanguard of the post-genomic movement towards ‘precision medicine’. It is the medical application of systems biology, the biological study of wholes. Of particular interest, P4 systems medicine is currently promised as a revolutionary new biomedical approach that is holistic rather than reductionist. This article analyzes its concept of holism, both with regard to methods and conceptualization of health and disease. Rather than representing a medical (...) holism associated with basic humanistic ideas, we find a technoscientific holism resulting from altered technological and theoretical circumstances in biology. We argue that this holism, which is aimed at disease prevention and health optimization, points towards an expanded form of medicalization, which we call ‘holistic medicalization’: Each person’s whole life process is defined in biomedical, technoscientific terms as quantifiable and controllable and underlain a regime of medical control that is holistic in that it is all-encompassing. It is directed at all levels of functioning, from the molecular to the social, continual throughout life and aimed at managing the whole continuum from cure of disease to optimization of health. We argue that this medicalization is a very concrete materialization of a broader trend in medicine and society, which we call ‘the medicalization of health and life itself’. We explicate this holistic medicalization, discuss potential harms and conclude by calling for preventive measures aimed at avoiding eventual harmful effects of overmedicalization in systems medicine (quaternary prevention). (shrink)

This book undertakes an extensive study of the constellation of two eminent thinkers of post-idealism for the first time. The contributions in this volume analyze the relationship between Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard systematically and historically from a number of thematic perspectives: metaphysics and ethics, freedom and original sin, existential philosophy and the theory of suffering, art and aesthetics, religion and science. The book also goes into Kierkegaard s explicit disagreement with Schopenhauer and last but not least discusses the conflicting poles of (...) idealism and modernity. The volume is rounded off by a first complete and annotated German translation of the notes on Schopenhauer, which Kierkegaard wrote in his late journals.". (shrink)

'A thorough examination of the nature and value of forgiveness....This book stays close to its subject matter and moves within a tight focus. It is well written and thoroughly researched.'.

Physician-assisted suicide is a novel idea having affinities with both suicide and euthanasia. It has affinities with suicide because it involves a self-inflicted death, and it has affinities with euthanasia because the physician is instrumental in the death. It is, however, not exactly either, making it the subject of an exciting debate.

Bogen indeholder en gennemgang af Søren Kierkegaards altergangstaler, og det er forfatteren Niels Jørgen Cappelørns bærende tanke, at netop altergangstalerne er helt centrale for forståelsen af Kierkegaards kristendomsopfattelse. Med forfatterens egne ord, så lyder bogens tese således: Skal det lykkes at trænge ind i Kierkegaards teologi, er der kun én vej. Og den går gennem altergangsprædikenerne.

I spell out and update the individuality thesis, that species are individuals, and not classes, sets, or kinds. I offer three complementary presentations of this thesis. First, as a way of resolving an inconsistent triad about natural kinds; second, as a phylogenetic systematics theoretical perspective; and, finally, as a novel recursive account of an evolved character. These approaches do different sorts of work, serving different interests. Presenting them together produces a taxonomy of the debates over the thesis, and isolates ways (...) it has been productive. This goes to the larger point of this paper: a defense of the individuality thesis in terms of its utility, and an update of it in light of recent theoretical developments and empirical work in biology. (shrink)

Biological lineages move through time, space, and each other. As they do, they diversify, diverge, and grade away from and into one another. One result of this is genealogical discordance; i.e., the lineages of a biological entity may have different histories. We see this on numerous levels, from microbial networks, to holobionts, to population-level lineages. This paper considers how genealogical discordance impacts our study of species. More specifically, I consider this in the context of three framing questions: (1) How, if (...) at all, does genealogical discordance challenge, modify, or revise how we conceive of species? (2) How has growing appreciation of genealogical discordance impacted scientific practice? Of systematics in particular? (3) How do lineages at different levels diverge and diversify? All told, genealogical discordance enriches and complicates our taxonomic ontology, as well as the practice of reconstructing phylogenies. This presents both challenges and opportunities for the study of divergence and diversification. (shrink)

Coercive Care: The Ethics of Choice in Health and Medicine asks probing and challenging questions regarding the use of coercion in health care and social services. This book combines philosophical analysis with comparative studies of social policy and law in a large number of industrialized countries and proposes an ideal of judicial security on a global scale.

When and why is it right to kill? When and why is it wrong? Torbjörn Tännsjö examines three theories on the ethics of killing in this book: deontology, a libertarian moral rights theory, and utilitarianism. The implications of each theory are worked out for different kinds of killing: trolley-cases, murder, capital punishment, suicide, assisted death, abortion, killing in war, and the killing of animals. These implications are confronted with our intuitions in relation to them, and our moral intuitions are examined (...) in turn. Only those intuitions that survive an understanding of how we have come to hold them are seen as 'considered' intuitions. The idea is that the theory that can best explain the content of our considered intuitions gains inductive support from them. We must transcend our narrow cultural horizons and avoid certain cognitive mistakes in order to hold considered intuitions. In this volume, suitable for courses in ethics and applied ethics, Tännsjö argues that in the final analysis utilitarianism can best account for, and explain, our considered intuitions about all these kinds of killing. (shrink)

The repair of chromosomal double‐strand breaks (DSBs) by homologous recombination is essential to maintain genome integrity. The key step in DSB repair is the RecA/Rad51‐mediated process to match sequences at the broken end to homologous donor sequences that can be used as a template to repair the lesion. Here, in reviewing research about DSB repair, I consider the many factors that appear to play important roles in the successful search for homology by several homologous recombination mechanisms.

For over a century, the Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard has been at the center of a number of important discussions, concerning not only philosophy and theology, but also, more recently, fields such as social thought, psychology, and contemporary aesthetics, especially literary theory. Despite his relatively short life, Kierkegaard was an extraordinarily prolific writer, as attested to by the 26-volume Princeton University Press edition of all of his published writings. But Kierkegaard left behind nearly as much unpublished writing, most of which (...) consists of what are called his "journals and notebooks." Kierkegaard has long been recognized as one of history's great journal keepers, but only rather small portions of his journals and notebooks are what we usually understand by the term “diaries.” By far the greater part of Kierkegaard’s journals and notebooks consists of reflections on a myriad of subjects—philosophical, religious, political, personal. Studying his journals and notebooks takes us into his workshop, where we can see his entire universe of thought. We can witness the genesis of his published works, to be sure—but we can also see whole galaxies of concepts, new insights, and fragments, large and small, of partially completed but unpublished works. Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks enables us to see the thinker in dialogue with his times and with himself. Kierkegaard wrote his journals in a two-column format, one for his initial entries and the second for the extensive marginal comments that he added later. This edition of the journals reproduces this format, includes several photographs of original manuscript pages, and contains extensive scholarly commentary on the various entries and on the history of the manuscripts being reproduced. Volume 9 of this 11-volume series includes five of Kierkegaard’s important “NB” journals, which span from June 1852 to August 1854. This period was marked by Kierkegaard’s increasing preoccupation with what he saw as an unbridgeable gulf in Christianity—between the absolute ideal of the religion of the New Testament and the official, state-sanctioned culture of “Christendom,” which, embodied by the Danish People’s Church, Kierkegaard rejected with increasing vehemence. Crucially, Kierkegaard’s nemesis, Bishop Jakob Peter Mynster, died during this period and, in the months following, Kierkegaard can be seen moving inexorably toward the famous “attack on Christendom” with which he ended his life. (shrink)

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-55) was an almost unbelievably prolific writer. At his death he left not only a massive body of published work (25 volumes in the recently completed Princeton University Press edition), but also a sprawling mass of unpublished writings that rivaled the size of the published corpus. This book tells the story of the peculiar fate of this portion of Kierkegaard's literary remains, which flowed ceaselessly from his steel pen from his late teens to a week before his death. (...) It is the story of packets and sacks of paper covered with words and images that, after a vagabond existence in various homes, finally landed at the Royal Danish Library, where they are today guarded with great care. Readers are also introduced to a selection of this enormous body of material, including drawings and doodlings (often human profiles with high foreheads) that escaped from Kierkegaard's pen in unguarded moments and complement the allure of the philosopher's strikingly variable, elusive handwriting. The authors of this book are among the editors of a modern critical edition of Kierkegaard's oeuvre currently being produced in Copenhagen. By the end of his life Kierkegaard had become a controversial figure, engaged in a furious assault upon "Christendom." From the very moment of their discovery in the days following his death, the unpublished words and images constituted a highly problematic bonanza, an intellectual and religious hot potato (or sack of potatoes) that was passed from hand to hand, suppressed, selectively and tendentiously published and republished. Written Images offers readers a fascinating tour of the misadventures of these written images that will, finally, soon be published in their entirety. (shrink)

Systems medicine, which is based on computational modelling of biological systems, is emerging as an increasingly prominent part of the personalized medicine movement. It is often promoted as ‘P4 medicine’. In this article, we test promises made by some of its proponents that systems medicine will be able to develop a scientific, quantitative metric for wellness that will eliminate the purported vagueness, ambiguity, and incompleteness—that is, normativity—of previous health definitions. We do so by examining the most concrete and relevant evidence (...) for such a metric available: a patent that describes a systems medicine method for assessing health and disease. We find that although systems medicine is promoted as heralding an era of transformative scientific objectivity, its definition of health seems at present still normatively based. As such, we argue that it will be open to influence from various stakeholders and that its purported objectivity may conceal important scientific, philosophical, and political issues. We also argue that this is an example of a general trend within biomedicine to create overly hopeful visions and expectations for the future. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.