Natural Goodness, PHILIPPA FOOT. Clarendon Press, 2002, 125 pages. Philippa Foot begins her short but intriguingly rewarding book on Natural Goodness by recounting a story about Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein interrupted a speaker who had realized that he was about to say something that, although it seemed compelling, was clearly ridiculous, and was trying (as we all do in such circumstances) to say something sensible instead. “No,” said Wittgenstein. “Say what you want to say. Be crude and then we shall get on.” (...) (p. 1) So it is no surprise that Natural Goodness itself is full of bold sayings which, although elegantly cast, will shock many readers' philosophical sensibilities. In this discussion of Foot's book I will complete compliance with Wittgenstein's advice by way of a crude attempt to interpret Foot's bold sayings. (shrink)

So much of the work that we do as philosophers is published without much critical commentary from our colleagues. Only rarely do we have the chance to improve our work through the extensive critical analysis of our colleagues. That is why I am very grateful to have this opportunity to benefit from the valuable critical analysis that the contributors to this volume have directed at my practical reconciliation argument for making people just. While in this brief response I cannot hope (...) to discuss all the interesting points that my distinguished commentators Kurt Baier, Gerald Doppelt, James Fishkin, John Hospers, Alison Jaggar, Eric Mack, Jeffrey Reiman, Rosemarie Tong and Iris Young have raised, I will try to lay to rest at least some of their doubts concerning my practical reconciliation argument for making people just. (shrink)

The big picture -- Theory -- The Christian myth -- Social interests -- Social issues -- Cultural analytics -- Three mono myths -- Imagining the future -- Conclusion: A palliative postscript.

Eine Christliche Theorie der Gerechtigkeit ist eine pluralismusfahige christliche Gerechtigkeitsethik mit globaler Reichweite. Angesichts zahlloser globaler Probleme wie die extreme Armut von fast einer Milliarde Menschen ist fur die christliche Ethik ein Paradigmenwechsel zu einer konsensorientierten Ethik der Gerechtigkeit notwendig.

An ethics primer for nurses and nursing students that advances a vision for a holistic Christian notion of health and explores what Christian faith means, on a practical level, for the practice of nursing.

This book aims to help readers interpret, and reflect on, their reading more effectively. It presents doctrines of ancient and renaissance rhetoric (an education in how to write well) as questions or categories for interpreting one's reading. The first chapter presents the questions. Later chapters use rhetorical theory to bring out the implications of, and suggest possible answers to, the questions: about occasion and audience (chapter 2), structure and disposition (3), narrative (4), argument (5), further elements of content, such as (...) descriptions, comparisons, proverbs and moral axioms, dialogue, and examples (6), and style (7). Chapter eight describes ways of gathering material, formulating arguments and writing about the texts one reads. The conclusion considers the wider implications of taking a rhetorical approach to reading. The investigation of rhetoric's questions is interspersed with analyses of texts by Chaucer, Sidney, Shakespeare, Fielding and Rushdie, using the questions. The text is intended for university students of literature, especially English literature, and rhetoric, and their teachers. (shrink)

Das Werk ist ein neuer systematischer Gesamtentwurf fur eine Ethik postmoderner Gesellschaften aus christlicher Perspektive. Diese ist pluralismusfahig und kompatibel zu Erkenntnissen der politischen Philosophie, der Politikwissenschaft, der Soziologie und der Okonomie. Die Ergebnisse empirischer Gerechtigkeitsforschung stehen hier unverzichtbar am Beginn ethischen Argumentierens ebenso wie die Ergebnisse der Diskursethik. Daruber hinaus stellt sich die Autorin grundsatzlichen Fragen heutiger Ethik: "Haben Menschen einen naturlichen Sinn fur Gerechtigkeit und welchen? Ist Gerechtigkeit universal oder beliebig? Gehort Gleichheit zur Gerechtigkeit hinzu?" Das Neue einer (...) derartigen christlichen Ethik ist ihre Konsensorientierung mit globaler Reichweite. Die christliche Ethik vollzieht damit einen Paradigmenwechsel hin zum demokratietheoretisch fundierten Konsensparadigma moderner Ethik. Es wird klar herausgearbeitet, dass allgemeine Normen nicht mehr auf der Basis metaphysischer Wesensreflexionen uber die Natur der Dinge oder die Normalitat einer Handlung erfolgen durfen. Vielmehr sind alle potentiell Betroffenen in einer neutralen Vertragssituation nach ihrer Zustimmung zu Normen zu befragen. Deren Einigungsprozess stellt die Rekonstruktion einer normativen Ethik dar, ohne diese in die Beliebigkeit einzelner zu legen. Die Form fallt dann auch in der christlichen Ethik nicht mehr hinter den materiellen Anspruch auf Personenrechte zuruck. (shrink)

This comprehensive Handbook presents the major perspectives within philosophy and literary studies on the relations, overlaps and tensions between philosophy and literature. Drawing on recent work in philosophy and literature, literary theory, philosophical aesthetics, literature as philosophy and philosophy as literature, its twenty-nine chapters plus substantial Introduction and Afterword examine the ways in which philosophy and literature depend on each other and interact, while also contrasting with each other in that they necessarily exclude or incorporate each other. This book establishes (...) an enduring framework for structuring the broad themes defining the relations between philosophy and literature and organising the main topics in the field. Key Features • Structured in five parts addressing philosophy as literature, philosophy of literature, philosophical aesthetics, literary criticism and theory, and main areas of work within philosophy and literature • An Introduction setting out the main concerns of the field through discussion of the major themes along with the individual topics • An Afterword looking at the interactions between philosophy and literature through itself enacting philosophical and literary writing while examining the question of how they can be brought together The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Literature is an essential resource for scholars, researchers and advanced students in philosophy of literature, philosophy as literature, literary theory, literature as philosophy, and the philosophical aesthetics of literature. It is an ideal volume for researchers, advanced students and scholars in philosophy, literary studies, philosophy and literature, cultural studies, classical studies and other related fields. (shrink)

Locke’s short essay, “Venditio,” offers a series of thought-provoking examples of prices that might or might not be viewed as just. Locke writes as though these examples and his comments about them point to a coherent doctrine about which agreed-to prices are morally acceptable and which are morally unacceptable. However, despite the acuity of some of Locke’s observations, no such coherent doctrine emerges from Locke’s discussions of these examples. Indeed, many of the conclusions Locke reaches as he moves from example (...) to example are implausible in themselves or inconsistent with one another. Nevertheless, not all is lost. Locke’s observations can be viewed as thought experiments on his part which, in conjunction with insights from Locke’s other economic writings, indicate what features a doctrine of acceptable and unacceptable prices needs to possess. I show how a line of argument which appears almost as a sidebar within “Venditio” offers a doctrine that provides those needed features. That doctrine affirms both “the common law of traffic” and “the common law of charity” and a view about when the latter takes priority over the former. (shrink)

Fodor and Lepore, in their recent book "Holism," maintain that if an inference from semantic anatomism to semantic holism is allowed, certain fairly deleterious consequences follow. In Section 1 Fodor and Lepore's terminology is construed and amended where necessary with the result that the aforementioned deleterious consequences are neither so apparent nor straightforward as they had suggested. In Section 2 their "Argument A" is considered in some detail. In Section 3 their "argument attributed to Quine" is examined at length and (...) a shorter and more perspicacious argument suggested which avoids their charge that the Quinean argument is guilty of an equivocation on the word 'statement'. (shrink)

ObjectivesThe end of life is an ethically challenging time requiring complex decision-making. This study describes ethical frameworks among physician trainees, explores how these frameworks manifest and relates these frameworks to experiences delivering end-of-life care.DesignWe conducted semistructured in-depth exploratory qualitative interviews with physician trainees about experiences of end-of-life care and moral distress. We analysed the interviews using thematic analysis.SettingAcademic teaching hospitals in the United States and United Kingdom.ParticipantsWe interviewed 30 physician trainees. We purposefully sampled across three domains we expected to be (...) associated with individual ethics in order to elicit a diversity of ethical and experiential perspectives.ResultsSome trainees subscribed to a best interest ethical framework, characterised by offering recommendations consistent with the patient’s goals and values, presenting only medically appropriate choices and supporting shared decision-making between the patient/family and medical team. Others endorsed an autonomy framework, characterised by presenting all technologically feasible choices, refraining from offering recommendations and prioritising the voice of patient/family as the decision-maker.ConclusionsThis study describes how physician trainees conceptualise their roles as being rooted in an autonomy or best interest framework. Physician trainees have limited clinical experience and decision-making autonomy and may have ethical frameworks that are dynamic and potentially highly influenced by experiences providing end-of-life care. A better understanding of how individual physicians’ ethical frameworks influences the care they give provides opportunities to improve patient communication and advance the role of shared decision-making to ensure goal-aligned end-of-life care. (shrink)

Incidental findings in research with human participants may have implications for a person’s present health or future health outcomes. Current guidelines focus on methods for handling and reporting incidental findings from biological test data but incidental findings might also arise from non-biological tests. This article presents three examples in which the results from non-biological test data can be predictive of future disease and should be disclosed to research participants. It is intended to increase awareness and facilitate further discussion about the (...) reporting of incidental findings from non-biological data. (shrink)

Arien Mack and Irvin Rock make the radical claim that there is no conscious perception of the visual world without attention to it.

The incredible achievements of modern scientific theories lead most of us to embrace scientific realism: the view that our best theories offer us at least roughly accurate descriptions of otherwise inaccessible parts of the world like genes, atoms, and the big bang. In Exceeding Our Grasp, Stanford argues that careful attention to the history of scientific investigation invites a challenge to this view that is not well represented in contemporary debates about the nature of the scientific enterprise. The historical record (...) of scientific inquiry, Stanford suggests, is characterized by what he calls the problem of unconceived alternatives. Past scientists have routinely failed even to conceive of alternatives to their own theories and lines of theoretical investigation, alternatives that were both well-confirmed by the evidence available at the time and sufficiently serious as to be ultimately accepted by later scientific communities. Stanford supports this claim with a detailed investigation of the mid-to-late 19th century theories of inheritance and generation proposed in turn by Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, and August Weismann. He goes on to argue that this historical pattern strongly suggests that there are equally well-confirmed and scientifically serious alternatives to our own best theories that remain currently unconceived. Moreover, this challenge is more serious than those rooted in either the so-called pessimistic induction or the underdetermination of theories by evidence, in part because existing realist responses to these latter challenges offer no relief from the problem of unconceived alternatives itself. Stanford concludes by investigating what positive account of the spectacularly successful edifice of modern theoretical science remains open to us if we accept that our best scientific theories are powerful conceptual tools for accomplishing our practical goals, but abandon the view that the descriptions of the world around us that they offer are therefore even probably or approximately true. (shrink)

The place of the emotions among the passions -- The analytic of the emotions I -- The analytic of the emotions II -- The dialectic of the emotions -- Pride, arrogance, and humility -- Shame, embarrassment, and guilt -- Envy -- Jealousy -- Anger -- Love -- Friendship -- Sympathy and empathy.

The primary purpose of this essay is to offer a critique of a particular program within moral and political philosophy. This program can be stated quite succinctly. It is to account for agents' being subject to deontic restrictions on the basis of their possession of agent-relative reasons for acting in accordance with those restrictions. Needless to say, the statement of this program requires some further explication. Specifically, two claims require explanation: the reasons individuals have for or against engaging in particular (...) actions are, at least to a very significant extent, agent-relative rather than agent-neutral; and agents' conduct toward others is subject to deontic restrictions. Finally, I need to explain why an agent's possession of agent-relative reasons for performing or refraining from certain actions may be thought to explain that agent's being subject to certain deontic restrictions. (shrink)