This paper advances a new paradigm in clinical ethics education that not only emphasizes development of individual cli but also focuses on the institutional context within which health care professionals work. This approach has been applied to the goal of improving the care provided to critically and terminally ill adults. The model has been adopted by about thirty hospitals and nursing homes; additional institutions will soon join the program, entitled Decisions Near the End of Life. Here, we describe the history (...) and rationale for this approach, its goals, pedagogical assumptions, and design. (shrink)

Den Ausgangspunkt des Aufsatzes bildet Dieter Henrichs These, daß die Negation in Hegels Wissenschaft der Logik selbstreferentiell und autonomisiert vorkommt. Sie wird als exegetische These an dem daseinslogischen Sachverhalt des Anderen seiner selbst sowie am Übergang von der Seins- zur Wesenslogik bewährt und wie folgt differenziert: In der Seinslogik erscheint die Selbstbeziehung der Negation als mit Unmittelbarem kontaminiert, erst in der Wesenslogik trifft sie autonomisiert hervor. Mittel der Differenzierung ist der mengentheoretische Begriff der Unfundiertheit, der es ferner erlaubt, die (...) These von der Selbstbeziehung der Negation auch der Sache nach zu verteidigen und sie für eine Nichtstandarddiagnose der Lügnerantinomie fruchtbar zu machen. (shrink)

Body representations are known to be dynamically modulated or extended through tool use. Here, we review findings that demonstrate the importance of a user's tool experience or expertise for successful tool embodiment. Examining expert tool users, such as individuals who use tools in professional sports, people who use chopsticks at every meal, or spinal injury patients who use a wheelchair daily, offers new insights into the role of expertise in tool embodiment: Not only does tool embodiment differ between novices and (...) experts, but experts may experience enhanced changes to their body representation when interacting with their own, personal tool. The findings reviewed herein reveal the importance of assessing tool skill in future studies of tool embodiment. (shrink)

What exactly do we need to do in order to make a promise, or to exercise some other normative power? On a view relied on by many philosophers writing on promising, consent, and related phenomena, the answer is that we must communicate a suitable kind of intention. On this view, power-conferring principles assert that specific normative consequences, determined in part by the content of the communicated intention, attach to such communicative acts, and these principles need not be socially practised or (...) accepted to be true. The paper offers a defense of this convention-independent view against the forceful challenge developed by Jed Lewinsohn in ‘The “Natural Unintelligibility” of Normative Powers’. Lewinsohn appeals to action-theoretic considerations to show that the relevant type of communicative act could not be performed under conditions of rationality and full information, and that therefore promissory power and other normative powers require the existence of social rules conferring such powers. The defense of the view targeted by Lewinsohn turns partly on the exact content of plausible constraints on the intelligibility of actions done with a particular aim, and partly on the question just how the social acceptance of power-conferring rules should be thought to matter. (shrink)

There is a consensus that satire cannot be defined, but is best characterized by a cluster account. However, I argue that a cluster account does not acknowledge the artistically and politically significant distinction between real satire and some forms of frivolous topical comedy which are casually labeled ‘satire’ in international media contexts. To uphold this distinction, I introduce a weak proposal that satire is a genre which necessarily sets out to critique and entertain (with the qualification that these purposes necessarily (...) interact, although neither is wholly instrumental to the other). I further argue that this proposal also provides necessary and sufficient conditions for a definition of satire. (shrink)

This paper discusses the logical space of alternative conceptual engineering projects, with a specific focus on (1) the processes, (2) the targets and goals, and (3) the methods of such projects. We present an overview of how these three aspects interact in the contemporary literature and discuss those alternative projects that have yet to be explored based on our suggested typology. We show how choices about each element in a conceptual engineering project constrain the possibilities for the others, thereby giving (...) rise to distinct groupings of possible projects under the banner of conceptual engineering. We conclude with a critical reflection on the potential ethical issues that arise as a result of effectively putting conceptual engineering into practice. (shrink)

The world of disability theory is currently divided between those who insist it reflects a physical fact affecting life quality and those who believe disability is defined by social prejudice. Despite a dialogue spanning bioethical, medical and social scientific literatures the differences between opposing views remains persistent. The result is similar to a figure-ground paradox in which one can see only part of a picture at any moment. This paper attempts to find areas of commonality between the opposing camps, and (...) thus to rearrange the figures of the paradox at a fundamental level. The purpose is first to identify areas in which common ground can be achieved, and secondarily, to clarify the areas in which disagreement continues. While a general and unified theory of physical difference/disability is beyond the scope of this paper the result may advance that general goal. (shrink)

Den an den gewaltigen Umwälzungen unserer Zeit Interessierten bewegen heute in erster Linie die Probleme des sozialen Wandels - oder besser des dringend not wendigen Umbaus unserer Welt. Erst dahinter tritt seit einiger Zeit die Forderung nach dem Umbau des Menschen auf 1. Sie ist von der öffentlichkeit noch relativ wenig beachtet und offenbar als unangenehm fast tabuiert. Von den die Frage initiierenden Biologen ist diese Forderung aber durchaus ernst gemeint. Ihre Ten denz ist radikal. Außerhalb dieser Tendenz laufen aber (...) bereits unentwegt Prozesse, die zuerst Eingriff in die Physis und Psyche des Menschen, dann eben doch schon Veränderung bedeuten oder bedeuten können. Der Massenausstoß von Chemikalien bis ins Trinkwasser und in die Zahnpasta hinein und die permanente massenhafte Massenbeeinflussung teilgeplanter Art, zum Beispiel durch Werbung, deren Wirkung (besonders insgesamt!) völlig unbekannt ist, ist damit gemeint. Hier setzt unser Interesse ein. Die Idee einer Veränderung des Menschen ist einmal überhaupt bewegend. Zum anderen gilt ihr deshalb unser Fachinteresse, weil eine an der Kulturanthropologie und der sogenannten Philosophischen Anthropologie orientierte Soziologie durch die Behauptung und Verbreitung des Konzeptes von der »Offenheit« und »Plasti zität«, der unbegrenzten Beeinflußbarkeit und Lernfähigkeit des Menschen, zu sammen mit einer untheoretischen Evolutionstheorie erst den Hintergrund für die Idee der Möglichkeit eines »Umbaus« des Menschen geliefert hat. Ist der Mensch total offen, nicht festgelegt, dann kann er auch beliebig angepaßt werden. (shrink)

Theodor W. Adorno’s writings are often categorized as either political, aesthetic or critical. While all of these characteristics are legitimate, it is problematic to view Adorno from only one of these angles. In fact, many literary critics consider his thoughts about literature to be simple cultural criticism, i.e., something that leaves the realm of pure scholarship by defiling the argumentation with philosophy or politics. Political theorists and philosophers, on the other hand, often view his literary concerns as superfluous. It is (...) my thesis that Adorno’s way of thinking can only be adequately understood when these categories are not seen as mutually exclusive. In order to demonstrate this point, I will concentrate on his use of the term realism which can be seen as paradigmatic for this question. (shrink)

Résumé Les affinités paradoxales que la recherche a pu pointer entre la « secte » philosophique épicurienne et la secte chrétienne dans les premiers siècles de notre ère sont rappelées puis examinées dans le détail du premier document attestant une rencontre précise entre les deux sectes, le récit des Actes des Apôtres qui montre Paul discutant avec les Épicuriens et les Stoïciens d’Athènes, puis nous restitue le discours de Paul devant l’Aréopage d’Athènes. Il apparaît que Paul se pose en philosophe (...) pour exposer sa doctrine en des termes jusqu’à un certain point compatibles avec une doctrine matérialiste voire polythéiste. (shrink)

In so far as the Tao Te Ching and the Chuang Tzu are life-philosophies, they are philosophies of solitude. My aim in the following pages is to explain and defend this claim, clarifying the distinctive kind of solitude that is taught by Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu.

Constitutionalism: Past, Present, and Future will offer a definitive collection of Professor Dieter Grimm's most important scholarly writings on constitutional thought and interpretation. The essays included in this volume explore the conditions under which the modern constitution could emerge; they treat the characteristics that must be given if the constitution may be called an achievement, the appropriate way to understand and interpret constitutional law under current conditions, the function of judicial review, the remaining role of national constitutions in a (...) changing world, as well as the possibility of supra-national constitutionalism.Many of these essays have influenced the German and European discussion on constitutionalism and for the first time, much of the work of one of German's leading scholars of public law will be available in the English language. (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz wird zunächst der Begriff ›Fragment‹ im Kontext einer Theorie des ›Werks‹, also des abgeschlossenen Artefakts, geklärt. Es wird gezeigt, dass Fragmente im Gegensatz zu Werken in mindestens einer Hinsicht defiziente Artefakte sind. Im folgenden Schritt wird herausgearbeitet, wo das Fragment an seine Grenzen kommt. Gemeint ist dabei einerseits die materielle Abgrenzung des Fragments von seiner Umgebung durch Schnitte, Brüche und Konturen, andererseits die begriffliche Abgrenzung des Fragments von benachbarten literarischen Formen der Prosa und der Lyrik wie Aphorismus, (...) Skizze, Entwurf, Montage und Monostichon. Ferner wird ein Blick auf ›totale Fragmente‹ (George Steiner), also Extremformen der Fragmentierung, geworfen, vor allem auf solche Fälle, in denen Artefakte ganz oder nahezu ganz gescheitert, verloren oder zerstört sind, also ein Maximum an Defizienz aufweisen. Der Schwerpunkt der Überlegungen liegt im Bereich der Literatur; andere Künste und Medien werden jedoch durchgehend vergleichend herangezogen. (shrink)

In Spescha and Strahm [15], a system of explicit mathematics in the style of Feferman [6] and [7] is introduced, and in Spescha and Strahm [16] the addition of the join principle to is studied. Changing to intuitionistic logic, it could be shown that the provably terminating operations of are the polytime functions on binary words. However, although strongly conjectured, it remained open whether the same holds true for the corresponding theory with classical logic. This note supplements a proof of (...) this conjecture. (shrink)

Dashiell Hammett’s reaction was “sharp and angry, snarling” when he read, at her request, a work in progress by his friend and lover, Lillian Hellman. “He spoke as if I had betrayed him.” His judgment was absolute and his advice unsparing: “Tear this up and throw it away. It’s worse than bad—it’s half good.” That is exactly what I thought of Matti Häyry’s Rationality and the Genetic Challenge as, for the third time in the evening, I penned a note in (...) its margins and sent it sailing across the room in disgust. Cambridge University Press knows its book binding, however, and the spine of the text was undamaged. (shrink)

Review text: "... ist diese Einführung als solche uneingeschränkt zu empfehlen, da sie ihrem "analytischen? Charakter im besten Sinne des Wortes gerecht wird."Werner Wolbert in: Salzburger Theologische Zeitschrift 2/2008.

People judge positive information to be more alike than negative information. This good-bad asymmetry in similarity was argued to constitute a true property of the information ecology (Alves, H., Koch, A., & Unkelbach, C. (2017). Why good is more alike than bad: Processing implications. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21, 69–79). Alternatively, the asymmetry may constitute a processing outcome itself, namely an influence of phasic affect on information processing. Because no research has yet tested whether phasic affect influences perceived similarity (...) among stimuli, we conducted 5 Experiments that also tested whether phasic affect can account for the higher judged similarity among positive compared to negative stimuli. In three experiments, we affectively charged pictures of different Pokemon by pairing them with monetary gains and losses (Exp. 1a, 1b) as well as positive and negative trait words (Exp. 2); yet, the evaluative charge did not differentially influence perceived similarity among the Pokemon. Experiment 3 replicated the basic similarity asymmetry among positive and negative words, and found that it was unaffected by externally induced phasic affect. Experiment 4 showed that phasic affect had no influence on perceived similarity of non-evaluative words either. We conclude that albeit a weak influence of phasic affect on perceived similarity of stimuli cannot be ruled out entirely, it can most likely not account for the typically medium to large sized asymmetry in similarity among positive and negative stimuli. (shrink)

The acceptance of military directives violating medical ethics and international covenants encouraged by the demonisation of the enemy by the US president in 2002 has effectively removed the right of medical personnel to refuse participation in internationally proscribed actionsMedicine and its traditional ethic of care is today a victim of the current conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, its uniquely humanising mission rejected by US President George W Bush and his advisors. In denying the applicability of international agreements guaranteeing medicine’s ecumenical (...) role in this conflict they have transformed medicine into just another weapon of tactical significance. The result, predictable in retrospect, has been to make military physicians and nurses complicit—actively or passively—in what Litton calls an “atrocity-producing situation”, resulting in detainee or prisoner abuse.1From the first revelations of detainee torture in US detention camps to recent allegations of continued abuse , the focus of international attention has shifted from the US prosecution of low ranking, non-commissioned military personnel to the context in which the atrocities they committed occurred. “No one up the chain of command has ever been held accountable for what is in these horrifying images,” Center for Constitutional Rights Director Bill Goodman said of recently published photographs of 2004 prisoner torture and abuse.2 “The situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture following a 2006 investigation.3The denial of international law and convention involved the overt disavowal of covenants and conventions that for almost 150 years required medical personnel in the US military to act within the guidelines of a Hippocratic vision of medicine. To understand how fundamental this change has been requires a brief review of the history of medicine’s previously protected status and then a description of …. (shrink)

There has been no informed or honest debate in North America over the issue of liberalized euthanasia. Despite thousands of newspaper stories, scores of learned academic articles, a handful of closely analyzed legal decisions, and hours of broadcast news and talk show imagery, a full discussion is yet to begin.

There are many treatises concerning the soul. Plato was not the first to write on the subject. From Greek philosophy and religion the soul wandered over to Christianity. According to this religion, the soul accompanies the body, which it inhabits for a short while in order to then return to its primary homeland embodied in areas of primary existence and truth. There are many treatises concerning the soul. Plato was not the first to write on the subject. Wisława Szymborska, in (...) her collection of poems published in 2002 and titled A Moment, poses the most essential questions: Why does man exist? Why isn’t there nothingness? She also asks: What is the soul? Does man really possess a soul? What is the relationship between man and soul – to whom does the soul really belong? This is a treatise in the form of a poem which appears to be plain and modest, yet the questions it asks are fundamental. This interpretation aims to develop and translate from the language of poetry the religious and philosophical questions embraced by Szymborska’s poem. (shrink)

Although living conditions have improved throughout history, protest, at least in the last few decades, seems to have increased to the point of becoming a normal phenomenon in modern societies. Contributors to this volume examine how and why this is the case and argue that although problems such as poverty, hunger, and violations of democratic rights may have been reduced in advanced Western societies, a variety of other problems and opportunities have emerged and multiplied the reasons and possibilities for protest.

Morain and colleagues (2019) advocate rethinking the rather dogmatic guidance from both regulatory authorities and professional associations cautioning physician-investigators against obtaining inf...

A question between John Harris and I is the degree to which lessons may be learned, and insights gained, from a life distinguished by physical differences. He argues it as the “aborting Beethoven fallacy”, I insist on the evidence that what we learn from physical differences may be critical and life enhancing.

A personable teenager with Down's syndrome became a Canadian cause célèbre a few months ago when University Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta, denied him a position on the organ transplantation waiting list. Terry Urquart lacked “reasonable” intelligence, hospital officials said, a criterion for all transplant candidates at that hospital. Protests by the boy's family, and by groups active in the cause of those with developmental disabilities, became well-photographed stories on the nightly television news and in the nation's newspapers. It did not (...) hurt the Urquart cause one bit that the 17-year-old teenager had won a gold medal in skiing at the International Special Olympics. (shrink)