The authors were involved in developing an ethical framework to assist the Queens Region Board (Prince Edward Island, Canada) set priorities in health and health care. Two and one half years after the adoption of this framework, the authors undertook an evaluation of the framework. This paper will discuss: a) the historical background of regionalization in Canada, and in particular the circumstances leading up to the institution of regional boards in Prince Edward Island; b) the sorts of ethical issues facing (...) the Queens Regional Board; c) issues arising in connection with the use and development of ethics frameworks for managing ethical issues in priority setting; d) the framework adopted by the Queens Board and the process that led to its development; e) issues arising as concerns implementation of the framework; f) questions and issues pertinent to other boards and bodies considering similar initiatives. (shrink)

The Universe cannot be exhaustively analysed if we stop at actual entities or even societies of actual entities which, as we shall see later when we discuss the notion of ‘nexus,’ are equivalent to what we ordinarily mean by enduring objects such as a stone, a tree, or a man. There is another class of entities which plays an important part in the constitution of the Universe called ‘eternal objects,’ and we must now proceed to an understanding of these.

In earlier articles an account has been given of some of the chief notions in the Organic Philosophy, namely Creativity, Actual Entities, Eternal Objects, God. In the present article the writer will endeavour to present Whitehead's doctrine concerning the space-time continuum and the nature of enduring objects implicated therein.

I have tried to expound Whitehead's doctrine of Creativity and of actual entities. Nothing remains but to give a brief summary of what has been said in the foregoing notes.Creativity is the ultimate activity and principle of novelty in the Universe.The world is said to consist of “actual entities,” not substances. An actual entity is also called an “actual occasion.” It is essentially a genetic process, having two sides, the process of “becoming,” and the outcome of the process named the (...) “satisfaction.” The satisfaction is the fully determined achievement abstracted from the process. On attaining satisfaction the actual entity viewed as a self-creating subject loses its “final” causation, and as a subject perishes, but the “satisfaction” remains as a potential constituent for the emergence of a new actual entity. This is its “efficient” causation. The potentiality of the satisfaction for a new creation is called its “objective immortality”: in this capacity it functions as an “object” for the self-creation of another actual entity. (shrink)

In earlier articles I explained the fundamental entities in the Organic Philosophy, namely: actual entities or actual occasions, and eternal objects. But there is also a third type of entity called “propositions,” very important for the introduction of novelty into our world, and indispensable for “consciousness” and the higher phases of experience. Before discussing Consciousness and these higher phases, it is necessary, therefore, to give an account of propositions.

During the later years of his life, the late Professor Alexander devoted much of his time to the study of our aesthetic and moral experience. In regard to the latter, Alexander was impressed by Adam Smith's treatment of the Moral Sentiments and especially with what he considered his sure insight in seeking for the ground of obligation in the causes of conduct, rather than in its effects. These causes were the passions. In this he was in sympathy with his contemporary (...) Hobhouse, who asserted with conviction that action rested on impulse feeling, and that it was useless to look for anything whether it was called Practical Reason or anything else, that stood outside the body of impulse feeling and controlled it. I think it was the considered opinion of Alexander, as it was that of Hobhouse, that if Psychology had anything to teach us bearing upon Morals, it was that the springs of human conduct must be looked for in our inherited tendencies with their associated emotions. Fear, sorrow, joy, repulsion, curiosity, pugnacity, self-assertion, the sex instinct, and acquisitiveness and constructiveness, are present, not only in men of all living races, but also in most of the higher animals. These specific tendencies and emotions, with certain complex passions such as admiration, reverence, scorn and the rest; together with one or two general tendencies such as sympathy and imitativeness, arising out of the nature of mental processes, must have played a leading role in the determination of human conduct, both in its lower and higher grades. (shrink)

When the weather is fair, it is the custom of the writer to take a walk across the common which abuts on to his house and garden. This morning he observed the fresh green of the spring grass, and at the same time heard from an adjacent hawthorn bush the cheerful song of the thrush. As he proceeded, the scent of burning brushwood in a clearing near by was smelt. He picked up a stick lying on the grass and used (...) it as a staff. Within a few minutes he had enjoyed sense experience through eyes, ears, nose and hands. In the autumn he hopes to gather from the bushes a handful of blackberries, as he has done in many previous years, and enjoy their luscious taste. (shrink)

In my last article I described fully the important type of entity in Whitehead's philosophy called “propositions,” and explained the part they played in conscious experience. We learnt that “consciousness” was a certain kind of emergent quality associated with the late phase of concrescence of some high-grade actual entities. It was pointed out that whenever consciousness was present in experience, this proved to be the subjective form of an integral synthetic feeling composed of a physical feeling and a pro-positional feeling. (...) This integral feeling was said to be a feeling of contrast between “actuality” and “ideality,” between a fact and a possibility. That is to say consciousness is the subjective form of the feeling of a contrast between what actuality is, and might not be, or what actuality is not, and yet might be. We can now proceed to deal with a number of higher phases of experience such as “belief,” “conscious perception,” “judgment,” together with experiences termed by Whitehead “physical purposes.”. (shrink)

Investigates the resolution of contradictions and ambiguous derogations in a code, by means of the imposition of partial orderings. Although formulated as a study in the logic of norms, it provided the initial ideas for work on the logic of theory (or belief) change, developed by the authors in a series of papers by the authors and Peter Gardenfors beginning in 1985.

An adequate theory of rights ought to forbid the harming of animals to promote trivial interests of humans, as is often done in the animal-user industries. But what should the rights view say about situations in which harming some animals is necessary to prevent intolerable injustices to other animals? I develop an account of respectful treatment on which, under certain conditions, it’s justified to intentionally harm some individuals to prevent serious harm to others. This can be compatible with recognizing the (...) inherent value of the ones who are harmed. My theory has important implications for contemporary moral issues in nonhuman animal ethics, such as the development of cultured meat and animal research. (shrink)

Because spaying/neutering animals involves the harming of some animals in order to prevent harm to others, some ethicists, like David Boonin, argue that the philosophy of animal rights is committed to the view that spaying/neutering animals violates the respect principle and that Trap Neuter Release programs are thus impermissible. In response, I demonstrate that the philosophy of animal rights holds that, under certain conditions, it is justified, and sometimes even obligatory, to cause harm to some animals in order to prevent (...) greater harm to others. As I will argue, causing lesser harm to some animals in order to prevent greater harm to others, as TNR programs do, is compatible with the recognition of the inherent value of the ones who are harmed. Indeed, we can, and do, spay/neuter cats while acknowledging that they have value in their own right. (shrink)

In The Case for Animal Rights, Tom Regan argues that although all subjects-of-a-life have equal inherent value, there are often differences in the value of lives. According to Regan, lives that have the highest value are lives which have more possible sources of satisfaction. Regan claims that the highest source of satisfaction, which is available to only rational beings, is the satisfaction associated with thinking impartially about moral choices. Since rational beings can bring impartial reasons to bear on decision making, (...) Regan maintains that they have an additional possible source of satisfaction that nonrational beings do not have and, consequently, the lives of rational beings turn out to have greater value.. (shrink)

De uma perspectiva comportamentalista radical, o eu é um repertório verbal complexo, que, como tal, tem uma gênese social. O reconhecimento da origem social do “eu” abre caminho para uma análise política, incluindo uma discussão do pa- pel das relações de poder na constituição do eu. Entretanto, uma concepção radicalmente social do “eu”, como a proposta pelo comportamentalismo, suscita um problema político: se o eu é integralmente produto do ambiente social, de onde viria uma eventual “vontade” de romper com esse (...) sistema? Parece que para reconhecer a possibilidade de ação política transformadora seria preciso preservar uma noção descontextualizada de “eu”. Considerando essa dificuldade, o objetivo deste artigo é propor uma interpretação política da constituição do “eu” no âmbito do comportamentalismo radical, mantendo no horizonte a possibilidade de uma ação política transformadora. Para tanto, destacamos como “eus” oprimidos são tornados submissos, mas também como de certas contingências podem emergir “eus” subversivos, que se opõem a um sistema social opressivo. Esse “eu” subversivo é caracterizado por um repertório de autoconhecimento mais amplo, que inclui a discriminação do papel das relações de poder e do controle promovido por instituições. Concluímos, com isso, que um “eu” socialmente constituído pode ser politicamente ativo. (shrink)

Higher-order thought theories maintain that consciousness involves the having of higher-order thoughts about mental states. In response to these theories of consciousness, an attempt is often made to illustrate that nonhuman animals possess said consciousness, overlooking an alarming consequence: attributing higher-order thought to nonhuman animals might entail that they should be held morally accountable for their actions. I argue that moral responsibility requires more than higher-order thought: moral agency requires a specific higher-order thought which concerns a belief about the rightness (...) or wrongness of affecting another’s mental states. This “moral thought” about the rightness or wrongness is not yet demonstrated in even the most intelligent nonhuman animals, thus we should suspend our judgments about the “rightness” or “wrongness” of their actions while further questioning the recent insistence on developing an animal morality. (shrink)

The distinction between clinical practice and surgical research may seem trivial, but this distinction can become a complex issue when innovative surgeries are substituted for standard care without patient knowledge. Neither the novelty nor the risk of a new surgical procedure adequately defines surgical research. Some institutions tacitly allow the use of new surgical procedures in series of patients without informing individuals that they are participating in a scientific study, as long as no written protocol or hypothesis exists. Institutions can (...) justify this practice by viewing human research in narrow terms as an activity outlined in a formal protocol. Application of limited definitions, however, erodes patients' rights and risks losing public confidence in how biomedical research is conducted. I propose an operational definition of human research also be recognised. Enforcing more rigid and less ambiguous guidelines of human research may curtail enrolment into some studies, but it will also protect patients from being used as subjects without their knowledge. (shrink)

It is common for conservationists to refer to non-native species that have undesirable impacts on humans as “invasive”. We argue that the classification of any species as “invasive” constitutes wrongful discrimination. Moreover, we argue that its being wrong to categorize a species as invasive is perfectly compatible with it being morally permissible to kill animals—assuming that conservationists “kill equally”. It simply is not compatible with the double standard that conservationists tend to employ in their decisions about who lives and who (...) dies. (shrink)

Nevertheless, and in spite of these drawbacks, it will be clearly intimated to him that the value of philosophy is, indeed, very great, although it happens ...