Introduction, by D. J. Silver.--The issues: Some current trends in ethical theory, by A. Edel. Contemporary problems in ethics from a Jewish perspective, by H. Jonas. What is the contemporary problematic of ethics in Christianity? By J. M. Gustafson. Modern images of man, by J. N. Hartt. Is there a common Judaeo-Christian ethical tradition? By I. M. Blank. Problematics of Jewish ethics, by M. A. Meyer. Revealed morality and modern thought, by N. Samuelson.--The Jewish background: Does Torah mean law? (...) By J. Neusner. Confrontation of Greek and Jewish ethics: Philo: De Decalogo, by S. Sandmel. Reprobation, prohibition, invalidity: an examination of the Halakhic development concerning intermarriage, by L. Silberman. Death and burial in the Jewish tradition, by S. B. Freehof. God and the ethical impulse, by W. G. Plaut.--Social action: Civil disobedience and the Jewish tradition, by S. G. Broude. Religious responsibility for the social order: A Jewish view, by E. L. Fackenheim. Toward a theology for social action, by R. G. Hirsch. The mission of Israel and social action, by E. Lipman. Some cautionary remarks, by J. Kravetz.--The mission of Israel: On the theology of Jewish survival, by S. S. Schwarzchild. Meaning and purpose of Jewish survival, by A. Gilbert. Beyond the apologetics of mission, by D. J. Silver. (shrink)
In a recent article, Trenton Mericks argues that psychological continuity analyses (PC-analyses) of personal identity over time are incompatible with endurantism. We contend that if Merricks's argument is valid, a parallel argument establishes that PC-analyses of personal identity are incompatible with perdurantism; hence, the correct conclusion to draw is simply that such analyses are all necessarily false. However, we also show that there is good reason to doubt that Merricks's argument is valid.
This paper examines Alvin Plantinga's defence of theistic belief in the light of Paul Draper's formulation of the problem of evil. Draper argues (a) that the facts concerning the distribution of pain and pleasure in the world are better explained by a hypothesis which does not include the existence of God than by a hypothesis which does; and (b) that this provides an epistemic challenge to theists. Plantinga counters that a theist could accept (a) yet still rationally maintain a belief (...) in God. His defence of theism depends on the epistemic value of religious experience. I argue, however, that Plantinga's defence of theism is not successful. (shrink)
This edited collection focuses on the problem of social justice, or, more particularly, how the demand for social justice was articulated and implemented in ...
Recent arbitration and human rights boards of inquiry cases involving discrimination against pregnant employees are reviewed. A comparison is made between remedies available under each procedure. It is suggested that the human resource managers review their policies and procedures relevant to this issue to ensure that they do not have the effect or intent of discriminating against pregnant employees.
Although we are sympathetic to his central thesis about the illusion of will, having previously advanced a similar proposal, Wegner's account of hypnosis is flawed. Hypnotic behavior derives from specific suggestions that are given, rather than from the induction, of trance, and it can be observed in 90% of the population. Thus, it is very pertinent to the illusion of will. However, Wegner exaggerates the loss of subjective will in hypnosis.
In this paper I will discuss three areas in which advances in human reproductive technology could occur, their uses and abuses, and their effects on society. First is the potential to drastically increase the success rate and availability of in vitro fertilization and embryo freezing. Second is the ability to perform biopsies on embryos prior to the onset of pregnancy. Finally, I will consider the adding or altering of genes in embryos, commonly referred to as genetic engineering.As new reproductive technologies (...) pass from experimental models into the potential for medical utilization, I believe that it will be important for lawmakers everywhere to avoid the impulse to outlaw procedures that a society believes to be unnatural at a first glance. Rather, I would hope that they can respond thoughtfully with legislation that serves two purposes — to protect the rights of couples to overcome infertility or to reduce the risk of genetic disease in their children-to-be, and more importantly, to protect children-to-be from the abuses that could result from some of the practices that I will discuss. (shrink)
In this paper, I develop the notion of an epistemic side constraint in order to overcome one of the main challenges to a goal-based approach to the structure of epistemic normativity. I argue that the rationale for such side constraints can be found in the work of John Locke and that his argument is best understood as the epistemic analog to David Gauthier’s argument as to the rationality of being moral.
In a recent article, Trenton Mericks argues that psychological continuity analyses (PC-analyses) of personal identity over time are incompatible with endurantism. We contend that if Merricks's argument is valid, a parallel argument establishes that PC-analyses of personal identity are incompatible with perdurantism; hence, the correct conclusion to draw is simply that such analyses are all necessarily false. However, we also show that there is good reason to doubt that Merricks's argument is valid.
This study used a laboratory experiment with monetary incentives to test the impact of three personal factors (moral reasoning, value orientation and risk preference), and three situational factors (the presence/absence of audits, tax inequity, and peer reporting behavior), while controlling for the impact of other demographic characteristics, on tax compliance. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) reveals that all the main effects analyzed are statistically significant and robustly influence tax compliance behavior. These results highlight the importance of obtaining a proper understanding of (...) these factors for developing effective policies for increasing the level of compliance, and indicate that standard enforcement polices based on punishment alone should be supplemented by an information system that would acquaint tax payers with the compliance level of other tax payers; reinforce the concept of fairness of the tax system among tax payers; and develop programs that enhance and appeal to a taxpayer''s moral conscience and reinforce social cohesion. (shrink)
In the traditional fix-it model of medical decision making, the identified problem is typically characterized by a diagnosis that indicates a deviation from normalcy. When a medical problem is multifaceted and the available interventions are only partially effective, a broader vision of the health care endeavor is needed. What matters to the patient, and what should matter to the practitioner, is the patient's future possibilities. More specifically, what is important is the character of the alternative futures that the patient could (...) have and choosing among them so as to achieve the best future possible, with the ranking of outcomes determined by the patient's preferences. This paper describes the fix-it model, presents and defends the outcomes-based model, and demonstrates that the latter is useful in developing normative conceptions of informed consent and decision making and in establishing a basis for societal involvement in the decision making process. Finally, several shortcomings of the model will be acknowledged. (shrink)
Geography is experiencing a 'moral turn' in its research interests and practices. There is also a flourishing interest in animal geographies that intersects this turn, and is concurrent with wider scholarly efforts to reincorporate animals and nature” into our ethical and social theories. This article intervenes in a dispute between Michael Dear and Richard Symanski. The dispute is over the culling of wild horses in Australia, and I intervene to explore how geography deepens our moral understanding of the animallhuman dialectic. (...) I begin by situating the inquiry into ethics and animals in geography. Next, I provide a synopsis of Dear and Symanski's comments on 'animal rights', followed in 'turn by discussions of moral value and value paradigms. I then introduce a value paradigm termed geocentrism as a geographical account of our moral relations to animals. Finally, I discuss the wider significance of this debate for geographical ethics, moral philosophy and social theory. (shrink)
I maintain that George Ripley (1802-1880) is among the most philosophically searching New England transcendentalists. In this essay I argue that Ripley’s denial that God’s miracles are the sole evidence of Christian truth clarifies the issues and debate that divide empiricists who seek evidence for truth through external verification and intuitionists who maintain that religious truth is manifest only within the minds, hearts, and special senses of true believers.
Moral reflections: David Harvey's justice, nature and the geography of difference. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell, 1996. 468 pp., paper/cloth, $25.95/$68.95, ISBN 1-55786-681-3/1-55786-680-5.
Background In earlier work, we found important selection biases when we tried to obtain consent for participation in a national stroke registry. Recognizing that not all registries will be exempt from requiring consent for participation, we examine here in greater depth the reasons for the poor accrual of patients from a systems perspective with a view to obtaining as representative sample as possible. Methods We determined the percent of eligible patients who were approached to participate and, among those approached, the (...) percent who actually consented to participate. In addition we examined the reasons why people were not approached or did not consent and the variation across sites in the percent of patients approached and consented. We also considered site variation in restrictions on the accrual and data collection process imposed by either the local research ethics board or the hospital. Results Seventy percent of stroke patients were approached, with wide variations in approach rates across sites (from: 41% to 86%), and considerable inter-site variation in hospital policies governing patient accrual. Chief reasons for not approaching were discharge or death before being approached for consent. Seventeen percent of those approached refused to participate (range: 5% to 75%). Finally, 11% of those approached did not participate due to language or communication difficulties. Conclusion We found wide variation in approach and agree rates across sites that were accounted for, in part, by different approaches to accrual and idiosyncratic policies of the hospitals. This wide variation in approach and agree rates raises important challenges for research ethics boards and data protection authorities in determining when to waive consent requirements, when to press for increased quality control, when to permit local adaptation of the consent process, and when to permit alternatives to individual express consent. We offer several suggestions for those registries that require consent for participation. (shrink)
In this article I bring together Jacques Derrida and Luce Irigaray's engagements with Sigmund Freud's vexed attempt to step beyond the pleasure principle. Derrida's speculations on the name, the house and the practice of Freud find him inadvertently rewriting the conditions of the autobiographical as that which erases as much as inscribes, while Irigaray requires a sexually different modelling of what we call language if the experience of the girl is to be addressed. Yet Irigaray uncannily repeats the teleological gesture (...) of laying claim to a legacy, diagnosed in Freud by Derrida, even as this legacy is newly imagined as that of the feminine to which Freud remained blind. I then interweave these revised stakes of the fort-da game as they are expressed in two experimental films; Lynn Hershman Leeson's feature Conceiving Ada (USA, 1997) and Hussein Chalayan's short Absent Presence (UK/Turkey, 2005). One self-consciously concerns the recovery of ‘lost’ women from history (da!), the other investigates the treatment of the foreigner staged with an all-female cast (in which the instability of foreign objects can secure no fortification for the scientific subject). The films differently engage fantasies concerning genetics, and differently engage the projection of a legacy as teleological ambition. Privileging Derrida's transformation of the pleasure into the postal principle as that which invokes ‘Tele–without telos’, I ask after the transmissibility of this ambition. (shrink)
The fields of environmental ethics and of religion and ecology have been shaped by Lynn White Jr.'s thesis that the roots of ecological crisis lie in religious cosmology. Independent critical movements in both fields, however, now question this methodological legacy and argue for alternative ways of inquiry. For religious ethics, the twin controversies cast doubt on prevailing ways of connecting environmental problems to religious deliberations because the criticisms raise questions about what counts as an environmental problem, how religious traditions (...) change, and whether ethicists should approach problems and traditions with reformist commitments. This article examines the critiques of White's legacy and presents a pluralist alternative that focuses religious ethics on the contextual strategies produced by moral communities as they confront environmental problems. (shrink)
Controversy about Lynn White’s thesis that medieval Christianity is to blame for our current environmental crisis has done little to challenge the basic structure of White’s argument and has taken little account of recent work done by medieval scholars. White’s ecotheological critics, in particular, have often failed to come to grips with White’s position. In this paper, I question White’s reading of history on both interpretative and factual grounds and argue that religious values cannot be treated independently of the (...) political, economic, and social conditions that sustain them. I conclude that medieval religious values were more complex than White suggests: rather than causing technological innovation, they more likely provided a justification for other activity taking place for other reasons. (shrink)
