Should we let personal responsibility for health-related behavior influence the allocation of healthcare resources? In this paper, we clarify what it means to be responsible for an action. We rely on a crucial conceptual distinction between being responsible and holding someone responsible, and show that even though we might be considered responsible and blameworthy for our health-related actions, there could still be well-justified reasons for not considering it reasonable to hold us responsible by giving us lower priority. We transform these (...) philosophical considerations into analytical use first by assessing the general features of health-related actions and the corresponding healthcare needs. Then, we identify clusters of structural features that even adversely affected people cannot reasonably deny constitute actions for which they should be held responsible. We summarize the results in an analytical framework that can be used by decision-makers when considering personal responsibility for health as a criterion for setting priorities. (shrink)

In the face of environmental crises such as climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss—which all adversely impact on health—Gils-Schmidt and Salloch explore whether physicians can be justified in taking climate issues into account in clinical care.1 While their approach centres on the ‘climate-sensitive’ decisions, physicians can carry out on the micro-level of clinical decision-making, they encourage further discussions on how climate-related issues can be included across different levels of decision-making in healthcare. We propose a list of tasks and a model (...) to assist with navigating the range of factors and structural elements an environmentally sensitive ethics must address. Stephen Gardiner’s notion of a perfect moral storm is central to understanding these issues.2 Gardiner describes how a perfect moral storm occurs in the centre of three overlapping conditions for human action and policymaking in the face of climate change. This storm is driven by: (1) a lack of interest among current generations to meet global needs and accommodate the well-being of future generations, (2) a lack of ecological concerns for other parts of nature than humans and (3) weak ethical and political theories and institutions shaping policy decisions on issues with severe implications across borders and generations. Moreover, these conditions are embedded in the existing, complex world of ethically unjustified power imbalances and social injustice. The growing awareness of healthcare’s climate footprint has amplified and accelerated global, grassroots action to make healthcare more environmentally friendly. This includes incorporating environmental impacts into quality improvement methodologies, building communities of practice to explore how to make …. (shrink)

When viewed the history of Islamic thought, it is seen that the scholars have made an effort to understand the nature of the speech of God and make sense of it. Essentially, understanding and grasping of the words of God are an effort to look from the physical realm to the metaphysical one. In spite of this fact, the scholars as the indomitable seekers of truth are in search of finding some clues to say about it. While some of them (...) consider the “divine speech” as an attribute of God, many others view it as a divine act. It is also admitted by all of them that whether being attributive or act of God, the reflection of the divine speech is the Qur’ân. In this sense, three views have been put forward on the question of the belonging of the Qur’ânic words. According to the dominant and preferred point of view among these views, Qur’ân belongs to God in terms of wording and meaning. Accordingly, the revelation of the Qur’ân, which was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed consists of both wording and meaning. Therefore, there is no intervention or contribution of Gabriel or Muhammad in constituting of Qur’ân. According to the second approach, the meaning of Qur’ânic text belongs to God, however, its words pertain to Mohammed. This view signals that Gabriel revealed nothing more than the meanings of Qur’ân. Mohammed understands the meanings conveyed to him and then said them in Arabic expression patterns and phrases. According to the third approach, the meanings of Qur’ânic text belongs to God, however, its words pertain to Gabriel. In other words, only meanings of text were given to Gabriel, and its words are formed by him. In the present study, the mentioned approaches which are put forward by scholars about the belonging of Qur’ânic words will be examined in terms of the integrity of the Qur’ân and Tafsir rumors (riwâyât) of the classical period. In a nutshell, it can be said that there is no disagreement among scholars in the field of the belonging of the meanings of Qur’ânic text to God. The main disagreement is whether the Qur’ânic words belong to God, Gabriel or Muhammad. Considering the integrity of Qur’ân and Tafsir rumors regarding to the circumstances of sending down of the Qur’ânic revelation, it has been determined that the prevailing view is more consistent than the other two views. (shrink)

The mutakallimūn, who began to take care of nature as a result of their metaphysical concerns from the early period and with the influence of the dualist and materialist groups, suggested various theories that attempt to explain the structure and functioning of the universe. Over time, many subjects of physics became an indispensable part of Kalām and were used in the proof of the fundamental principles. Thus, in addition to the definition of body (jism), Kalām books began to contain detailed (...) topics such as time, space, movement and distance. After summarizing the definitions of body, which were made by the mutakallimūn, this article will examine the contents of Ibn Kamāl's epistle on ṭafra (leaping), which has many copies with various titles in the Turkish Libraries. In the beginning of the epistle, Ibn Kamāl mentions the descriptions of body suggested by the prominent mutakallimūn, and then, he compares the views of al-Naẓẓām, who believes in the finite division, with atomist mutakallimūn who accept the infinite division. He criticizes the idea of ṭafra with regard to the notion of body in Kalām. After explaining the arguments of both groups with their justifications, he points out the weaknesses of the arguments of each group, as well. In this connection, he revisits the theory of ṭafra, which is, he argues, a mandatory consequence of al-Naẓẓām’s definition of object, as he also reviews the opinions of Quṭb al-Din al-Rāzī in this direction. (shrink)

This article is focused on the theory of nature (ṭabʽ) advocated by some of the early Muʽtazilī scholars such as Muʻammar b. ʽAbbād al-Sulamī (d. 215/830), Abū Isḥāq al-Naẓẓām (d. 231/845), Abū ʽUthmān al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/869) and Abū al-Qāsim al-Kaʽbī (d. 319/931) and its consequences about causality and miracle. The supporters of the ṭabʽ theory argue that Allah creates all beings with innate and permanent natures and these natures determine all movements and events in universe, and that necessary causal relationships (...) based on it prevail in the universe. But this understanding was criticized and rejected by the majority of Muslim theologians. The focal point of the criticism is God’s agency and His relationship with the universe. The acceptance of such necessary causality in the universe would make it impossible for God to intervene in nature, that is to create a miracle. So, miracles will be the work of the place where it occurs like all other acts when the concept of nature is accepted. In this case, it will not be possible to prove the omnipotence of God and belief in prophethood, which forms the basis of two principles of Islamic belief. This study deals with the dimensions of compulsory causality in the thought of naturalist Muslim theologians by addressing two questions: how the issue of miracle is grounded, and whether a divine intervention in nature of entities is possible. (shrink)

Hermann von Helmholtz’s work on perceptual science had a fundamental impact on Neo-Kantian movements in the late nineteenth century, and his influence continues to be felt in psychology and analytic philosophy of perception. As is widely acknowledged, Helmholtz denied that we can perceive mind-independent properties of external objects, a view I label Ignorance. Given his commitment to Ignorance, Helmholtz might seem to be committed to a subjectivism according to which we only perceive properties of our own representations. Against this, I (...) argue that for Helmholtz, the properties we perceive are not monadic properties of either the subject or the object. Rather, Helmholtz endorsed a relationalism about the properties we perceive: the properties of objects we perceive are all relational properties. I then suggest that once we take into account oft-neglected terminological distinctions in Helmholtz’s corpus, we are better able to make sense of his commitment to relationalism. (shrink)

Professor Foot's Hart Lecture, now published (1995), is largely devoted to an attack on people she calls ‘subjectivists’ and ‘noncognitivists', among whom she includes myself, although she is so good as to allow me, in a footnote, to reject thenames.She seems to imply thereby that this is a mere matter of nomenclature or terminology. But in truth her use of these terms makes one suspect that she has not fully understood either the issues or what I have said about them.It (...) may therefore be useful to explain yet again why I reject these descriptions. I have done so already in a paper to a conference in Moscow which she heard, and to which she kindly refers (Hare 1993a). These explanations would not be important if she were the only person to be confused about this matter; but the confusions are so widespread, even among professional philosophers who should know better, and are so often taught to succeeding generations of students, that it is worth while to make yet another attempt to clear them up - though the confusions are so insidious that I have not much hope that they will ever be eradicated. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that there is a causal condition on perception, and that this condition is a conceptual truth about perception. A highly influential argument for this claim is based on intuitive responses to Gricean style thought experiments. Do the folk share the intuitions of philosophers? Roberts et al. (2016) presented participants with two kinds of cases: Blocker cases (similar to Grice’s case involving a mirror and a pillar) and Non-Blocker cases (similar to Grice’s case involving a clock and brain (...) stimulation). They found that a substantial minority agreed that seeing occurs in the Non-Blocker cases, and that in the Blocker cases significantly less agreed that seeing occurs. They thus hypothesized that folk intuitions better align with a no blocker condition than with a causal condition. This paper continues this line of enquiry with two new experiments. The paper investigates the generality and robustness of Roberts et al.’s findings by expanding the sense modalities tested from only vision to audition and olfaction as well. The paper also uses Gricean style thought experiments as a case study for investigating the “reflection defense” against the negative project in experimental philosophy. Our results replicate and extend Roberts et al.’s study and support their hypothesis that folk intuitions better align with a no blocker condition. They also provide an empirical reason to doubt the reflection defense. (shrink)

This is the first edition of Plato's Republic to be based on an exhaustive examination of all the textual evidence - manuscripts, including papyri; quotations and allusions in ancient authors; translations into Coptic, Arabic and Hebrew. The three primary manuscripts have been examined with particular care. Many new readings have been introduced in the text and a critical apparatus gives details for all relevant textual evidence.

The author, who pioneered this argument in 1961, here places it in the context of traditional discussions of the problem, and answers various criticisms that have been made.

Char et al. describe an interesting and useful approach in their paper, “Identifying ethical considerations for machine learning healthcare applications.” Their proposed framework, which see...

Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm al-Zāhid al-Ṣaffār is one of the important representatives of the Kalām thought of the Ḥanafī-Māturīdī School. He was born in A.H. 450/ C.E. 1058 in Bukhara that is one of the city of Transoxiana/Mawara al-nahr where Maturidi School has emerged around this socio-cultural environment. He completed his education and served as a leader (rais/ ṣadr) of the Hanafite scholars there until he was exiled to the city of Marv. Upon his return from exile, he passed away in (...) Bukhara in A.H. 534/ C.E. 1139. The present study aims to determine his method in Kalām. The introduction outlines the subject, significance, purpose, method, and sources of the research. In this study, it was employed a method that focuses on a person in which he/she is examined with his/her views and thoughts by taking into account his/her socio-cultural factors. By doing this, the first chapter of this study deals with the political, socio-economic, and scientific situation in Transoxiana, and the activities of diverse religions, sects, and philosophical schools in this region in A.H. V-VI/C.E. XI-XII. In the second chapter, it studies al-Ṣaffār’s life, scientific personality, works as well as the sources that he made references to in his works in detail. In the third chapter, the kalām method of al-Ṣaffār has been tried to be determined. For this purpose, it analyzes his extant works, Talkhīṣ al-adilla li-qawāʿid al-tawḥīd and Risālah fī al-kalām and elaborates first on his defense of the Kalām that gives great importance to reason (ʿaql) and to intellectual debates, if necessary, in theological issues. Then it explores his theory of knowledge with his ideas on the definition, possibility, sources, and types of knowledge, and the epistemological understandings he defensed or criticised. Furthermore, to determine his Kalām method, it evaluates his approach towards the value of ‘aql and naql (Qurʾān-Ḥadīth) as sources of knowledge. Since this issue is a distinctive tool for unveiling the kalām methods of different mutakallims and Muslim sects. Finally, it finds out the types of istidlāl, meaning inference of one thing from the other that he used when he argues and defends his views, and illustrates with examples. (shrink)

In this, the first of two ground-breaking volumes on the nature of language in the light of the way it evolved, James Hurford looks at how the world first came to have a meaning in the minds of animals and how in humans this meaning eventually came to be expressed as language. He reviews a mass of evidence to show how close some animals, especially primates and more especially apes, are to the brink of human language. Apes may not talk (...) to us but they construct rich cognitive representations of the world around them, and here, he shows, are the evolutionary seeds of abstract thought - the means of referring to objects, the memory of events, even elements of the propositional thinking philosophers have hitherto reserved for humans. What then, he asks, is the evolutionary path between the non-speaking minds of apes and our own speaking minds? Why don't apes communicate the richness of their thoughts to each other? Why do humans alone have a unique disposition to reveal their thoughts in complex detail? Professor Hurford searches a wide range of evidence for the answers to these central questions, including degrees of trust, the role of hormones, the ability to read minds, and the willingness to cooperate. Expressing himself congenially in consistently colloquial language the author builds up a vivid picture of how mind, language, and meaning evolved over millions of years. His book is a landmark contribution to the understanding of linguistic and thinking processes, and the fullest account yet published of the evolution of language and communication."A wonderful read - lucid, informative, and entertaining, while at the same time never talking down to the reader by sacrificing argumentation for the sake of 'simplicity'. Likely to be heralded as the major publication dealing with language evolution to date. Frederick J. Newmeyer, University of Washington. (shrink)

One of the divine quotations narrated from the timeline of Qur’ānic revelation is seen as a word of Prophet Mohammad in the 30th verse of the surah of al-Furqān. It’s observed that the speaker of this verse is Prophet Mohammad and he complains to God about his tribe which neglects the Qur’ān. In the present study, semantic structure and the meaning area of the phrase “mahjūr”, which is the key word in this verse, the meaning of it in the timeline (...) of Qur’ānic revelation and the interpretations attributed to it in the following centuries are traced. Likewise by examining Qur’ānic exegesis chronologically and investigating the interpretations of the exegetes on the relevant verse, it’s tried to see the semantic breaking points, changes and transformations regarding this verse in the historical process. Finally, the approaches of the exegetes who interpreted this verse in terms of the method of maqāsidī tafsir or the principle of teleological interpretation are determined. The approaches detected in this respect are first explained in a descriptive style, and then they’re evaluated in an analytical point of view. The findings and conclusions we reached in this study are as follows: As stated by the majority of exegetes, especially Qatāda, al-Zamakhsharī, Ibn Atiyya, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and al-Sa‘ālibī, the aforementioned verse belongs to the Prophet Mohammed in terms of both wording and meaning. It hasn’t been determined that there’s a conflict about the pertaining of this word to him. According to this hadith quoted in surah al-Furqān, the Qurayshi polytheists made unwarranted objections to the Prophet and the divine instructions that he brought, his heart was narrowed in the face of their attitude towards the Qur’ān, and for these reasons he complained about his tribe to God. It can be said that this meaning seen in Mecca in the tenth year of his prophethood, namely, insulting the Qur’ān, abandoning it, and denying the themes in it, also includes Muslims after the revelation period. Accordingly, it can be thought that the aspect and situation of not acting on the provisions of the Qur’ān and not thinking about its verses are also valid for the interlocutors of the next period. In this direction, when we look at the history of tafsir, it has been determined that the exegetes who interpreted this verse in terms of teleological interpretation asserted different approaches. It was seen that al-Zamakhsharī, al-Rāzī, Abū al-Barakāt al-Nasafī, al-Bikā‘ī, Kamālpasazāde, Sayhzāda and Ibn ʻĀshūr interpreted this complaint of the Prophet by associating it with the coming of punishment. Therefore, in compliance with them, this verse aimed to threaten all the interlocutors, especially the Quraysh. On the other hand, it has recognized that Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyah, Ibn Kathir, Bursavī and Sayyid Qutb evaluated this verse in the context of the types and ways to abandon the Qur’ān. Thus, they interpreted the relevant verse in terms of maqāsidī tafsir in a way that would cover both the first addressees of Qur’ānic revelation and other interlocutors in the following periods. In a nutshell, it can be considered that not endeavoring to understand and interpret the Qur’ān, or keeping it away from family and social life, law, understanding of earning and spending, not referring to it in such matters, or giving up living a life pursuant to it, are some of the routes and sorts of abandonment of it for Muslims. (shrink)

Amidst the “lavender scare” of the Cold War, James Schuyler, “the great queer voice of the New York School,” subverted the state’s auditory surveillance of queer life. Refunctionalizing its tools of espionage as poetic tactics, Schuyler eavesdrops on errant conversations (the espoused) and joining (espousing) them in paratactic assembly. In so doing, Schuyler expands José Esteban Muñoz’s “queer optic,” the utopian capacity to see beauty amidst ruins, beyond the visual into a queer otic that drags into being a world of (...) freer espousal. I survey the aural surveillance of mid-century queer life before tracing Schuyler’s détournement of bugging, wiretapping, and overhearing in his 1969 Freely Espousing. In turn, I uncover the queer political commitments lurking beneath Schuyler’s classification as a pastoral lyricist concerned only with “leaves and flowers and weather.”. (shrink)

Further examines the sense in which moral judgements are universalizable. Distinguishes between moral and logical theses of universalizability and shows how the moral does not follow from the logical. Universalizability, in the form maintained in this book, is a logical, not a moral, thesis; furthermore, nothing substantially moral follows from the logical thesis. The chapter presents the exact import of the thesis and considers the role of moral principles.

First published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book presents new results in computability theory, a branch of mathematical logic and computer science that has become increasingly relevant in recent years. The field's connections with disparate areas of mathematical logic and mathematics more generally have grown deeper, and now have a variety of applications in topology, group theory, and other subfields. This monograph establishes new directions in the field, blending classic results with modern research areas such as algorithmic randomness. The significance of the book lies not only (...) in the depth of the results contained therein, but also in the fact that the notions the authors introduce allow them to unify results from several subfields of computability theory. (shrink)

Informal construction -- Formal construction -- Limiting results.