This paper argues that God may create and exist in any possible world, no matter how much suffering of any sort that world includes. It combines the traditional free will defence with the notion of an ‘occasion’ for good or evil action and limits God's responsibility to the creation of these occasions. Since no possible world contains occasions for more evil than good action, God is morally permitted to create any possible world. With regard to suffering that is not due (...) to free will, namely the suffering of beings who are not moral agents, the paper questions the idea that the relief of such suffering is a moral perfection. (shrink)

This paper argues that God may create and exist in any possible world, no matter how much suffering of any sort that world includes. It combines the traditional free will defence with the notion of an 'occasion' for good or evil action and limits God's responsibility to the creation of these occasions. Since no possible world contains occasions for more evil than good action, God is morally permitted to create any possible world. With regard to suffering that is not due (...) to free will, namely the suffering of beings who are not moral agents, the paper questions the idea that the relief of such suffering is a moral perfection. (shrink)

A major shift has taken place since the 1960s concerning disclosure to patients that they have a diagnosis of cancer and that their disease is considered terminal. Full disclosure is now considered the patient's right in the United States. However, there remain many countries in which nondisclosure is still the norm. When patients from those countries are diagnosed with cancer in America, differences in attitudes and expectations can cause conflict and misunderstanding.

Advance care directives for health care have been promoted as a way to improve end-of-life decision making. These documents allow a patient to state, in advance of incapacity, the types of medical treatments they would like to receive, to name a surrogate to make those decisions, or to do both. Although studies have shown that both physicians and patients generally have positive attitudes about the use of these documents, relatively few individuals have actually completed one.What underlies this discrepancy between attitudes (...) and behavior with regard to advance care directives? One obvious explanation is lack of access. Emanuel et al. estimated that approximately 90 percent of the population desire an advance care directive, and they pointed to access as the major barrier. Yet interventions that increase accessibility have typically failed to yield more than a 20 percent completion rate. Thus, it appears that access is not the sole determinant of advance care directive completion. (shrink)

Among hunter-gatherers, the sharing of male and female foods is often assumed to result in virtually the same diet for males and females. Although food sharing is widespread among the hunting and gathering Hadza of Tanzania, women were observed eating significantly more tubers than men. This study investigates the relationship between patterns of dental wear, diet, and extramasticatory use of teeth among the Hadza. Casts of the upper dentitions were made from molds taken from 126 adults and scored according to (...) the Murphy dental attrition scoring system. Females had significantly greater anterior occlusal wear than males when we controlled for age. Males exhibited greater asymmetry in wear, with greater wear on the left side in canines, first premolars, and first molars. We suggest that these sex differences in wear patterns reflect the differences seen in the diet, as well as in the use of teeth as tools. (shrink)

This study aimed to investigate whether a range of tasks that have been generally classed as requiring insight form an empirically separable group of tasks distinct from tasks generally classed as non-insight. In this study, 24 insight tasks, 10 non-insight tasks, and tests of individual differences in cognitive abilities and working memory were administered to 60 participants. Cluster analysis of the problem-solving tasks indicated that the presumed insight problems did tend to cluster with other presumed insight problems, and similarly the (...) presumed non-insight problems tended to cluster with other presumed non-insight tasks. Performance on presumed insight problems was particularly linked to measures of ideational flexibility with a different pattern of results for the non-insight tasks. Spatial insight problems were linked to spatial flexibility and verbal insight tasks were linked to vocabulary scores. The results are discussed in relation to recent developments of dual process theories of thinking. (shrink)

In what follows I argue for two interrelated theses: that early Buddhism is not a form of empiricism, and that consequently there is no basis for an early Buddhist apologetic which contrasts an empirical early Buddhism with either a metaphysical Hinduism on the one hand, or with a baseless Christianity on the other.

This collection of research papers explores the implications of quantum cosmology and the status of the laws of nature for theological and philosophical issues regarding God's action in the world. The main goal is to contribute to constructive theology as it engages current research in the natural sciences, and to investigate the philosophical and theological elements in ongoing theoretical research in the natural sciences.

Chapter 4 MIND AND REBIRTH I The argument of the first three chapters is essentially that the study of early Buddhism is neither methodologically, logically, nor emotively flawed. These chapters argue for the rationality of.

I present an outline of the Omega Point theory, which is a model for an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, evolving, personal God who is both transcendent to spacetime and immanent in it, and who exists necessarily. The model is a falsifiable physical theory, deriving its key concepts not from any religious tradition but from modern physical cosmology and computer science; from scientific materialism rather than revelation. Four testable predictions of the model are given. The theory assumes that thinking is a purely (...) physical process of the brain, and that personality dies with the brain. Nevertheless, I show that the Omega Point theory suggests a future universal resurrection of the dead very similar to the one predicted in the Judeo‐Christian‐Islamic tradition. The notions of “grace” and the “beatific vision” appear naturally in the model. (shrink)

“Dissecting Bioethics,” edited by Tuija Takala and Matti Häyry, welcomes contributions on the conceptual and theoretical dimensions of bioethics.The section is dedicated to the idea that words defined by bioethicists and others should not be allowed to imprison people's actual concerns, emotions, and thoughts. Papers that expose the many meanings of a concept, describe the different readings of a moral doctrine, or provide an alternative angle to seemingly self-evident issues are therefore particularly appreciated.The themes covered in the section so far (...) include dignity, naturalness, public interest, community, disability, autonomy, parity of reasoning, symbolic appeals, and toleration. (shrink)

The emerging new multidisciplinary and crosscultural field of bioethics will require sen sitive, open-minded professionals to take the lead in hospital ethics, in genetic coun selling, and in the teaching of bioethics to students in nursing, medicine and the basic sciences. Nurses with ward experience who return to university to gain an MA or PhD in bioethics are eminently suited for this leadership role, for they may be more likely than physicians to study for a liberal education to supplement their (...) professional know ledge ; their first-hand experience in nursing is an antidote to the pointless subtleties into which philosophical ethics so often degenerates. When teaching ethics to nurses one must remember that, while some will simply use this knowledge in their own clinical work, others will go on to be teachers and researchers in bioethics. Their training must therefore be broad and interdisciplinary, including real substantive philosophy (as opposed to philosophical ethics), as well as mystical bioethics, religious law, ethics of genetic counselling, clinical approaches to ethical pseudo prob lems, research skills, etc. (shrink)

Why was it that, with belief in the old gods discredited and scepticism spreading widely, Stoic ideals attracted the attention and ultimately won the adhesion of the most thoughtful Romans?Mr. Moellering traces this, first, to Stoicism's appeal to the Roman religious sense, and, secondly, to the Roman character itself. Aeneas, he believes, is the very embodiment of Roman Stoicism.