Several scholars have recently criticized the dominant emphasis upon mid-level principles in bioethics best exemplified by Beauchamp and Childress's Principles of Biomedical Ethics . In Part I of this essay, I assess the fairness and cogency of three broad criticisms raised against ‘principlism’ as an approach: (1) that principlism, as an exercise in applied ethics, is insufficiently attentive to the dialectical relations between ethical theory and moral practice; (2) that principlism fails to offer a systematic account of the principles of (...) nonmaleficence, beneficence, respect for autonomy, and justice; and (3) that principlism, as a version of moral pluralism, is fatally flawed by its theoretical agnosticism. While acknowledging that Beauchamp and Childress's reliance upon Ross's version of intuitionism is problematic, I conclude that the critics of principlism have failed to make a compelling case against its theoretical or practical adequacy as an ethical approach. In Part II, I assess the moral theory developed by Bernard Gert in Morality: A New Justification of the Moral Rules , because Gert has recommended his approach as a systematic alternative to principlism. I judge Gert's theory to be seriously incomplete and, in contrast to principlism, unable to generate coherent conclusions about cases of active euthanasia and paternalism. Keywords: active euthanasia, applied ethics, Beauchamp and Childress, intuitionism, paternalism, principlism, W.D. Ross CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Abortion is an especially salient issue for considering the general problematic of religiously based conversation in the public square. It remains deeply divisive, fully thirty-four years after Roe v. Wade. Such divisiveness cannot be interpreted as merely an expression of profound differences between “secular” and “religious” voices, because differences also emerge among Christian denominations, reflecting different sources of moral authority, different accounts of moral discernment, and different judgments about the appropriate relations between law and morality in the context of pluralism. (...) As this paper explores, however, despite those differences, a generally identifiable “Christian” position concerning the moral status of abortion can be distinguished from secular philosophical judgments on the issue, which is important for Christian engagement with public policy debate. (shrink)

This essay reflects on 25 years since Christian Bioethics began publication and, in somewhat autobiographical fashion, engages two core concerns. First, although “non-ecumenism” may often appear a pretext for contention and division, I suggest that a respectful non-ecumenism may provide the opportunity for dialogue and the occasion for employing certain tools from religious studies. Second, although many are skeptical about the possibilities of identifying a “common morality,” a defense of that notion provides a plausible explanation for the development of limited (...) consensus on some issues in bioethics. (shrink)

In a spirit of critical appreciation, this essay challenges several core aspects of the critique of secular morality and the defense of Orthodox Christianity offered by H. Tristram Engelhardt in After God. First, I argue that his procedurally driven approach to a binding morality based solely on a principle of permission leaves morality without any substantive definition in general terms, in ways that are both conceptually problematic and also at odds with Engelhardt’s long-standing distinction between non-malevolence and beneficence. Second, I (...) question the accuracy or adequacy of Engelhardt’s critique of the Enlightenment project for his unwarranted privileging of a particular version of Enlightenment thinking at the expense of other Enlightenment perspectives less amenable to Engelhardt’s working generalizations. Third, I challenge the theoretical cogency of Engelhardt’s insistence on the ubiquity and intractability of moral controversies and his depiction of moral strangers and moral friends as, in effect, mutually exclusive terms. Finally, I question Engelhardt’s embrace of a divine command model of ethics as the appropriate resolution of Euthyphro’s dilemma and suggest that there may be intermediate approaches to the usual starkly drawn contrasts between divine command and naturalist accounts. (shrink)

There are numerous challenges posed to Roman Catholic health care institutions by recent developments in health care delivery. Some are practical, involving the acceptable limits of accommodation to and collaboration with secular networks of health care delivery. Others, quite often implicated in the first set, are explicitly theological. What does it mean to be a distinctively Roman Catholic health care institution? What are the nature and the scope of Roman Catholic institutional identity? More broadly, what is the moral relevance of (...) themes in Roman Catholic social teaching to the provision of health care? This issue of Christian Bioethics addresses these questions with a spirited exchange among its authors. They offer noticeably different perspectives on the general cogency of Roman Catholic social teaching and different strategic recommendations for Roman Catholic institutions to maintain, or recover, their distinctive presence in health care delivery. (shrink)

In response to my earlier critique of recent attempts to rebut principlism as an ethical approach, Green, Gert, and Clouser (GG&C) have in turn offered their own critique of my appraisal. This essay identifies eight major criticisms GG&C raise in their response and offers a rejoinder to each. Among them, three are especially important: (1) that the label of ‘deductivism’ fails to capture GG&C's ethical method and should be replaced by ‘descriptivism’; (2) that pluralistic accounts, including principlism, fail to offer (...) any systematic way to resolve moral conflicts; and (3) that appeals to broader ‘moral’ principles beyond the moral rules are deceiving, since apparent differences in ‘moral’ judgment invariably involve disagreement about empirical facts rather than further moral considerations. In response to (1), I defend my earlier label by emphasizing the stipulated and invariant status of the moral rules GG&C invoke, even as I question the adequacy of their putative ‘descriptivism’. In response to (2), I suggest the plausibility of pluralist approaches and reiterate the modified just-war criteria that Beauchamp and Childress invoke in situations when principles conflict. In response to (3), I suggest that a ‘descriptivism’ worthy of the name must systematically accommodate the appeal to moral principles that remains central to metaethical and normative discussions. Keywords: deductivism, descriptivism, inruitionism, pluralism, principlism, publicity, specification of norms CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Different judgments by Christian communities on issues in sexual ethics involve different weightings of various sources of moral authority, different understandings of the normativity of the natural, and different assessments of the scope of freedom to be exercised in relation to the goods of marriage. These fundamental differences of interpretation can be exemplified by the ongoing Roman Catholic discussion of the legitimacy of voluntary sterilization in certain “hard cases.” The contributors to this issue of Christian Bioethics, in their spirited exchange (...) on that issue, exemplify the need for careful attention to the ways that differences of theological emphasis and moral method lead to different judgments in particular cases, both within and between particular Christian communities. (shrink)

This essay analyzes Roman Catholic social teaching on the right to health care and the legitimacy of healthcare rationing. It considers that discussion at two levels: (1) the specific warrants that undergird key terms; and (2) the accessibility and applicability of those warrants to policy choices in a secular society. The essay concludes with a number of broader reflections meant to reserve an appropriate place for religious voices in the process of policy-making, as distinguished from its justification.

Book reviewed in this article: Duties to Others. Edited by Courtney S. Campbell and B. Andrew Lustig.

Clouser and Gert’s 'A Critique of Principlism’ (1990) has ignited debate over the adequacy of substituting principlism for moral theory as a means for dealing with biomedical dilemmas. Clouser and Gert argue that this sort of substitution is not adequate to the task. I examine their argument in light of recent defences of principlism on this score, those of B. Andrew Lustig (1992), David Degrazia (1992), and Beauchamp and Childress (1994). I argue that both sides in the debate (...) have assumed differing conceptions of a moral theory that virtually guarantee their respective conclusions. These differing conceptions are motivated by antecedent epistemological commitments. The present debate over principlism is therefore inconclusive. Future discussion should focus on the underlying epistemological issues. (shrink)

Two years ago in two articles in a thematic issue of this journal the three of us engaged in a critique of principlism. In a subsequent issue, B. Andrew Lustig defended aspects of principlism we had criticized and argued against our own account of morality. Our reply to Lustig's critique is also in two parts, corresponding with his own. Our first part shows how Lustig's criticisms are seriously misdirected. Our second and philosophically more important part picks (...) up on Lustig's challenge to us to show that our account of morality is more adequate than principlism. In particular we show that recognition of morality as public and systematic enables us to provide a far better description of morality than does principlism. This explains why we adopt the label “Dartmouth Descriptivism.”. (shrink)

The discussion on ethical issues, it is said, should not be confined to experts but should be extended to patients and local communities, because of the real need to engage stakeholders and non‐stakeholders alike not only in carrying out any biomedical research project, but also in the drafting and legislation of bioethics instruments. Several local and inter‐country consultations have already been conducted in furtherance of this goal, but there is much left to be desired in them. The consultations may have (...) helped in articulating local principles, but not in making the instruments embody these principles. As such, instruments turn incompossible, i.e. the principles and actions they legitimate are not performable. In an ethnographic study conducted in the Philippines, for example, paragraphs 29 and 30 of the Declaration of Helsinki and CIOMS guidelines 8 and 15 are construed as not only contradictory to one another but also to local principles. This problem can be solved by taking deliberate steps to ensure that consultations are grounded in ethnographic data about local principles, which the instruments would embody. A steering committee can be of help in gathering ethnographic data, in conducting consultations at the local level, and in providing a venue for discourse on various bioethical issues. (shrink)

Distinctions between therapy and enhancement are difficult to draw with precision, especially in marginal cases. Nevertheless, most recent Christian discussions of enhancement technologies accept the general plausibility of distinctions drawn between therapeutic interventions and enhancement technologies by appealing to general understandings of nature and human nature as available benchmarks. On that basis, a range of religious assessments of enhancement technologies can be identified. Those judgments incorporate different interpretations of nature as a source of moral insight, different understandings of human responsibility (...) in light of God's purposes, and different assessments of the effects of sin and finitude on human freedom. (shrink)

In this concluding piece, we identify and discuss various aspects of convergence and, to a lesser degree, divergence in the ideas expressed in the contributions to this special section. These contributions emphatically illustrate that approach–avoidance motivation is integral to the scientific study of emotion. It is our hope that the articles herein will facilitate cross-talk among researchers and research traditions, and will lead to a more thorough understanding of the role of approach–avoidance motivation in emotion.

It has become standard practice for scientists to avoid the possibility of references to God by adopting methodological naturalism, a method that assumes that the reality of the universe, as it can be accessed by empirical enquiry, is to be explained solely with recourse to natural phenomena. In this essay, I critique the Christian practice of this method, arguing that a Christian's practices should always reflect her belief that the universe is created and sustained by the triune God. This leads (...) me to contend that the Christian should adopt a theologically humble approach to the sciences, with which she humbly acknowledges that special divine action is not discernible by empirical science. To further my critique, I consider three ways in which the practice of MN can be particularly problematic for Christianity. (shrink)

H. Tristram Engelhardt has made profound contributions to both philosophical and religious bioethics, and his philosophical and religious works may be read in mutually illuminating ways. As a philosopher, Engelhardt has mustered a powerful critique of secular efforts to develop a shared substantive morality. As a religious scholar, Engelhardt has affirmed a Christian bioethics that does not emanate from human rationality but from the experience of God found in Orthodox Christianity. In this collection of essays, both defenders and critics of (...) Engelhardt's religious bioethics have their say, and the spirited nature of their discussion attests, in its own right, to Engelhardt's enduring influence. (shrink)

This paper considers the neuropsychology of religious and spiritual experiences. This requires a review of our current understanding of brain function as well as an integrated synthesis to derive a neuropsychological model of spiritual experiences. Religious and spiritual experiences are highly complex states that likely involve many brain structures including those involved in higher order processing of sensory and cognitive input as well as those involved in the elaboration of emotions and autonomic responses. Such an analysis can help elucidate the (...) biological correlates of these experiences and provide new information regarding the function of the human brain. (shrink)

Despite a variety of “non-ecumenical” features in Christian arguments about suicide, assisted suicide, and euthanasia, there are obvious “ecumenical” aspects to be found in the general Christian prohibition of these practices. A fair reading of the Christian tradition requires that we acknowledge both the differences that distinguish particular perspectives and the fundamental themes that allow an identifiably Christian position to emerge in stark contrast to the secular discussion of these issues. Central to Christian interpretations of dying and death are an (...) acknowledgment of God's sovereignty over human life, an understanding of suffering that stresses identification with Christ as the source of Christian hope, and the recognition that God's creative and redemptive purposes are generally (or always) at odds with the deliberate choice of assisted suicide or euthanasia. (shrink)

The living mycelium networks are capable of efficient sensorial fusion over very large areas and distributed decision making. The information processing in the mycelium networks is implemented via propagation of electrical and chemical signals en pair with morphological changes in the mycelium structure. These information processing mechanisms are manifested in experimental laboratory findings that show that the mycelium networks exhibit rich dynamics of neuron-like spiking behaviour and a wide range of non-linear electrical properties. On an example of a single real (...) colony of _Aspergillus niger_, we demonstrate that the non-linear transformation of electrical signals and trains of extracellular voltage spikes can be used to implement logical gates and circuits. The approaches adopted include numerical modelling of excitation propagation on the mycelium network, representation of the mycelium network as a resistive and capacitive network and an experimental laboratory study on mining logical circuits in mycelium bound composites. (shrink)

We have studied a number of long-term meditators in previous studies. The purpose of this study was to determine if there are differences in baseline brain function of experienced meditators compared to non-meditators. All subjects were recruited as part of an ongoing study of different meditation practices. We evaluated 12 advanced meditators and 14 non-meditators with cerebral blood flow SPECT imaging at rest. Images were analyzed with both region of interest and statistical parametric mapping. The CBF of long-term meditators was (...) significantly higher compared to non-meditators in the prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex, thalamus, putamen, caudate, and midbrain. There was also a significant difference in the thalamic laterality with long-term meditators having greater asymmetry. The observed changes associated with long-term meditation appear in structures that underlie the attention network and also those that relate to emotion and autonomic function. (shrink)

Summary Recent concern with the academic performance of schools has led a number of local education authorities to develop systems for measuring the ?added value? that can be attributed to particular institutions in their control. An analysis of data published by one Midlands shire county on the performance of A level candidates in 1992 raised questions about the relative levels of academic achievement of pupils who remained within the Catholic school system compared to those who transferred to local authority institutions (...) for their full?time education after the age of 16. A small representative sample of students from a Catholic school who had transferred to a non?Catholic sixth form college to take A level courses was interviewed. The students? comments suggested they found significant differences in the college ethos compared to that of their previous Catholic school. Those findings together with the analysis or the available data from the local authority, raise issues that merit further detailed research. (shrink)

_341_ _Objectives: _In patients with multivessel disease both the detection of the culprit lesion and the exact allocation are important preconditions for sufficient treatment and improved outcome. In a vessel based approach the combination of quantitative coronary angiography and fractional flow reserve measured by a pressure wire should be advantageous compared to myocardial SPECT, as morphological and functional information is delivered simultaneously. Therefore our aim was to evaluate MS in the detection and allocation of hemodynamically significant stenoses obtained by the (...) combined gold standard QCA plus FFR in patients with multivessel disease. _Methods: _FFR and QCA of 95 vessels in 80 patients have been evaluated. Hemodynamically significant target lesions were defined as intermediate stenoses between 50 and 75% with an FFR. (shrink)

This article reviews and responds to various issues that have been raised in critical analysis of our work studying the relationship between religion and the brain. An adequate response necessitates a discussion about the origins of this research, the potential pitfalls of doing empirical research in this field, and the complex requirements of interpreting the implications of such an approach. Through inquiry such as this, the study of the brain and its relation to religion and religious experience will continue to (...) advance and uncover the many fascinating questions that await. (shrink)

We have a thriving biotechnology industry in the United States. There are over 1,450 biotechnology companies developing diagnostic and treatment technologies in medicine, creating more nutritional foods, and innovating new industrial processes. Yet this $28.5 billion sector of the economy is not without controversy. The “bio” in biotechnology comes from living, biological entities - people, plants, animals, and even bacteria. In the realm of biobanking, people are the source of the raw material for the discovery of genes for research, diagnosis, (...) and therapy, raising a host of issues about rights and responsibilities, fiduciary duties and societal obligations. (shrink)

Are the characteristics and relationships among spatio-temporal entities "real" or are they simply conventional terms that note similarities among things in the world but lack any reality of their own? Or if they are real, what sort of reality do they have? Do we live in a world of causes and effects, or is this relation a useful contrivance for our convenience? What is the nature of this "I" that we invoke when referring to ourselves? Is it body? Mind? Both? (...) Neither? And once its nature is understood, what can be said of the choices it makes? Are they really ours, freely made by an independent will? Or is each choice determined more by the internal makeup of the "I" we happen to be and the social/environmental circumstances in which this "I" finds itself, rather than by any act of will? But if each of us "could not have chosen otherwise" than we have, are we no better than the machines we construct? Then again, maybe some of our more advanced machines should be considered conscious entities? Introduction to Metaphysics: The Fundamental Questions presents these and other intriguing questions, many of which have challenged philosophers from antiquity to the present in their efforts to speculate on the nature of what is real. Often filled with twists and turns, dark corners and hidden recesses, this journey of discovery is an exciting excursion into the depths of human understanding. As guides for this intellectual journey editor Andrew Schoedinger has chosen an impressive array of creative and thought-provoking philosophers: Peter Abelard, Aristotle, Renford Bambrough, George Berkeley, Joseph Butler, Rudolf Carnap, Roderick Chisholm, R.G. Collingwood, Arthur Danto, Donald Davidson, Rene Descartes, C.J. Ducasse, Alvin I. Goldman, Keith Gunderson, David Hume, John Locke, Alasdair MacIntyre, A.I. Melden, John Stuart Mill, D.F. Pears, Hilary Putnam, Anthony Quinton, Bertrand Russell, Michael Scriven, Sydney Shoemaker, P. F. Strawson, Richard Taylor, and others. This volume is a unique invitation to join a distinguished group of theorists as they tackle tough questions concerning the existence of universals, the nature of causation, understanding personal identity, the tangled web of free will, and the challenges posed by the advent of artificial intelligence. (shrink)

This article provides a response to John Perry and Sarah Lane Ritchie's article, “Magnets Magic, and Other Anomalies: In Defense of Methodological Naturalism.” In so doing, it provides a defense of some of the arguments I made in my article, “Should a Christian Adopt Methodological Naturalism?” I begin by addressing some of the confusion about my position. However, it is not simply my intention to address confusions. There remain some fundamental differences between my position and Perry and Ritchie's. It is (...) on these differences that I wish to focus––differences that enable me to maintain my critique of methodological naturalism without falling prey to the problems they raise. Constructively, I advance the argument that the Christian scientist should be open to the possibility of theology‐engaged science, as well as the science‐engaged theology that Perry and Ritchie advocate. (shrink)

It is known that, on average, people adapt their choice of memory strategy to the subjective utility of interaction. What is not known is whether an individual's choices are boundedly optimal. Two experiments are reported that test the hypothesis that an individual's decisions about the distribution of remembering between internal and external resources are boundedly optimal where optimality is defined relative to experience, cognitive constraints, and reward. The theory makes predictions that are tested against data, not fitted to it. The (...) experiments use a no-choice/choice utility learning paradigm where the no-choice phase is used to elicit a profile of each participant's performance across the strategy space and the choice phase is used to test predicted choices within this space. They show that the majority of individuals select strategies that are boundedly optimal. Further, individual differences in what people choose to do are successfully predicted by the analysis. Two issues are discussed: the performance of the minority of participants who did not find boundedly optimal adaptations, and the possibility that individuals anticipate what, with practice, will become a bounded optimal strategy, rather than what is boundedly optimal during training. (shrink)

This paper argues that Nonreductive ethical naturalism is a viable approach to normative ethical theory. Central to Nonreductive ethical naturalism is the identification of moral properties with natural ones. Natural properties are objective and pertain to facts. It follows that moral properties are factual in nature. In the proposed theory pain and harm are the natural properties that are also moral in nature. Pain and harm are not identical. Pain is the chief indicator of harm. The concept of harm entails (...) injury. Injury to an individual is both a factual and moral issue. The well-being of individuals constitutes the foundation of morality. Consequently, that which runs counter to an individual's well-being is what we mean by evil. It follows that injury is evil and its intentional infliction upon other people is morally evil. The factual nature of ethical properties provides the basis for universal agreement on which forms of behavior are evil. As such, acceptance of this theory would go a long way in resolving many of the global problems that confront us all at the onset of the 2 1 s t century. (shrink)