This unorthodox approach results in an exceptionally imaginative and thought-provoking book as well as a strong defense of deontology.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:126 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY be used in a thousand different ways; it has been a misty halo which could be summoned to surround all revolution and every reaction. To the extent that the limitation upon man's right to consent to either tyranny or chaos was ignored or rejected in particular circumstances, it became associated with the dream of all the discontented and unfortunate. It has been a symbol which (...) might be invoked by all who have sought power with the support of the people. Popular sovereignty almost, but never quite, became the principle that work-a-day political justice is merely what the people want. The transition from historic popular sovereignty to Western democracy was a product of an age of confusion which began in the sixteenth century. On the one hand, there were specific things which it was considered that the power of the people should do, and therewith emerged the whole problem of what practical techniques the people might use. On the other hand, the basic divisions in modern theory of the function of public opinion appeared as the problem's philosophical counterpart (p. 12). Prof. Wilson traces the growing recognition and respect for "opinion" in politics from Plato, who had a low opinion of it, through the Medieval controversies to Marsilius of Padua, who, on Aristotelian premises formulated the "modern" principle that "the whole body of the citizens, or the weightier multitude thereof, which must be taken for the same thing, can better discern what must be elected and what rejected than any part of it taken separately" (p. 28). From this doctrine to the theory of popular sovereignty the way is fairly evident. But the story from the faith in popular sovereignty to a genuine theory of the legitimate and useful functions of public opinion and to a conception of institutionalized public opinion, which is central to modern democratic theories, is an intricate development. This story the author tells with great skill and with many references to the important literature. HERBERT W. SCHNEIDER Claremont, CaliJornia Rational Man: A Modern Interpretation of Aristotelian Ethics. By Henry Babcock Veatch. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962. Pp. 226. ~5.00.) Professor Veatch's book is an engaging one in its plea that philosophers be allowed to write (and that some should write) in "normative ethics" and not just in "recta-ethics." It is only less engaging in its exposition and advocacy of a Socratic-Aristotelian doctrine that the good life for man is an "examined life" and is a striving for the natural end of man as a rational animal. It is least engaging (and least accurate) in its counterattack, probably uncalled for in the thesis, on Moore's attack on the "naturalistic fallacy," which Mr. Veatch holds responsible, whatever may have been Moore's intention, for all the noncognitivists--emotivistor existentialist or popular. Moore's criticism of the naturalistic fallacy, right or wrong, has had the tribute of an extraordinary number of interpretations and criticisms in turn. Mr. Veatch's will not, I think, add to our understanding of the matter. Aristotle's opening "The good is that at which all things aim" is notoriously equivocal. Does it tell us what things aim at or what the good is? Mr. Veatch takes it as defining good but as needing, and having, the specification that the good is what a thing aims at "by nature," properly. I do not think this is Aristotle's basic doctrine. His very equivocality and circularity is perhaps his final sagacity in a subject not meant for scientific precision and he might better be taken on his word in the Rhetoric: The good is what would be chosen by the ablest man, with relevant knowledge, if the man is good. Virtue has happiness as its aim and happiness is a life in accordance with virtue. BOOK REVIEWS 127 And yet, with all his caviling, Aristotle does back up Socrates's examined life and his acceptance of arete as arete of someone and for something with the application of "know thyself" to the definition of man as a rational animal and with the advice that we try (some few) to reason and (all) to be... (shrink)

The marketing of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in the psychopharmacological industry presents a serious moral problem for the corporate model of medicine. In this paper I examine ethical issues relating to the efficacy and safety of these drugs. Pharmaceutical companies have a moral obligation to disclose all information in their possession bearing on the true risks and benefits of their drugs. Only then can patients make fully informed decisions about their treatment.

We develop an exact truthmaker semantics for permission and obligation. The idea is that with every singular act, we associate a sphere of permissions and a sphere of requirements: the acts that are rendered permissible and the acts that are rendered required by the act. We propose the following clauses for permissions and obligations: -/- - a singular act is an exact truthmaker of Pφ iff every exact truthmaker of φ is in the sphere of permissibility of the act, and (...) -/- - a singular act is an exact truthmaker of Oφ iff some exact truthmaker of φ is in the sphere of requirements of the act. -/- We show that this semantics is hyperintensional, and that it can deal with some of the so-called paradoxes of deontic logic in a natural way. Finally, we give a sound and complete axiomatization of the semantics. (shrink)

We identify the significance and typical requirements of developmental analyses of the microbiome-gut-brain in parents, offspring, and parent-offspring relations, which have particular importance for neurobehavioral outcomes in mammalian species, including humans. We call for a focus on behavioral measures of social-emotional function. Methodological approaches to interpreting relations between the microbiota and behavior are discussed.

The structure of rhodopsin is a subject of intense interest. Solving the structure by traditional methods has proved exceedingly challenging. It may therefore be useful to confront the problem by a combination of alternate techniques. These include FTIR (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy) and AFM (atomic force microscopy) on the intact protein. Furthermore, additional insights may be gained through structural investigations of discrete rhodopsin domains.

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerfulRita Dove(David Streitfeld, Washington Post, “Laureate for a New Age,” March 19, 1993).The genesis for this special issue arose in a rethin...

The current situation in medicine has been described as a crisis of credibility, as the profit motive of industry has taken control of clinical trials and the dissemination of data. Pharmaceutical companies maintain a stranglehold over the content of medical journals in three ways: (1) by ghostwriting articles that bias the results of clinical trials, (2) by the sheer economic power they exert on journals due to the purchase of drug advertisements and journal reprints, and (3) by the threat of (...) legal action against those researchers who seek to correct the misrepresentation of study results. This paper argues that Karl Popper's critical rationalism provides a corrective to the failure of academic freedom in biomedical research. (shrink)

This topically organized, interdisciplinary anthology provides competing perspective on the claim that western culture faces a moral crisis. Using clearly written, accessible essays by well-known authors in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities, the book introduces students to a variety of perspectives on the current cultural debate about values that percolates beneath the surface of most of our social and political controversies.