This contribution offers a detailed presentation of the commentaries on Porphyry’s Isagoge and Aristotle’s De anima by Walter of Wervia. Walter wrote his commentaries between 1445 and 1472 at the University of Paris. Both works bear witness to the influence of John Duns Scotus and Scotism on Parisian Masters of Arts.

In this article, we propose the Fair Priority Model for COVID-19 vaccine distribution, and emphasize three fundamental values we believe should be considered when distributing a COVID-19 vaccine among countries: Benefiting people and limiting harm, prioritizing the disadvantaged, and equal moral concern for all individuals. The Priority Model addresses these values by focusing on mitigating three types of harms caused by COVID-19: death and permanent organ damage, indirect health consequences, such as health care system strain and stress, as well as (...) economic destruction. It proposes proceeding in three phases: the first addresses premature death, the second long-term health issues and economic harms, and the third aims to contain viral transmission fully and restore pre-pandemic activity. -/- To those who may deem an ethical framework irrelevant because of the belief that many countries will pursue "vaccine nationalism," we argue such a framework still has broad relevance. Reasonable national partiality would permit countries to focus on vaccine distribution within their borders up until the rate of transmission is below 1, at which point there would not be sufficient vaccine-preventable harm to justify retaining a vaccine. When a government reaches the limit of national partiality, it should release vaccines for other countries. -/- We also argue against two other recent proposals. Distributing a vaccine proportional to a country's population mistakenly assumes that equality requires treating differently situated countries identically. Prioritizing countries according to the number of front-line health care workers, the proportion of the population over 65, and the number of people with comorbidities within each country may exacerbate disadvantage and end up giving the vaccine in large part to wealthy nations. (shrink)

All parties involved in researching, developing, manufacturing, and distributing COVID-19 vaccines need guidance on their ethical obligations. We focus on pharmaceutical companies' obligations because their capacities to research, develop, manufacture, and distribute vaccines make them uniquely placed for stemming the pandemic. We argue that an ethical approach to COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution should satisfy four uncontroversial principles: optimising vaccine production, including development, testing, and manufacturing; fair distribution; sustainability; and accountability. All parties' obligations should be coordinated and mutually consistent. For (...) instance, companies should not be obligated to provide host countries with additional booster shots at the expense of fulfilling bilateral contracts with countries in which there are surges. Finally, any satisfactory approach should include mechanisms for assurance that all parties are honouring their obligations. This assurance enables countries, pharmaceutical companies, global organisations, and others to verify compliance with the chosen approach and protect ethically compliant stakeholders from being unfairly exploited by unethical behaviour of others. (shrink)

COVID-19 vaccines are likely to be scarce for years to come. Many countries, from India to the U.K., have demonstrated vaccine nationalism. What are the ethical limits to this vaccine nationalism? Neither extreme nationalism nor extreme cosmopolitanism is ethically justifiable. Instead, we propose the fair priority for residents framework, in which governments can retain COVID-19 vaccine doses for their residents only to the extent that they are needed to maintain a noncrisis level of mortality while they are implementing reasonable public (...) health interventions. Practically, a noncrisis level of mortality is that experienced during a bad influenza season, which society considers an acceptable background risk. Governments take action to limit mortality from influenza, but there is no emergency that includes severe lockdowns. This “flu-risk standard” is a nonarbitrary and generally accepted heuristic. Mortality above the flu-risk standard justifies greater governmental interventions, including retaining vaccines for a country's own citizens over global need. The precise level of vaccination needed to meet the flu-risk standard will depend upon empirical factors related to the pandemic. This links the ethical principles to the scientific data emerging from the emergency. Thus, the FPR framework recognizes that governments should prioritize procuring vaccines for their country when doing so is necessary to reduce mortality to noncrisis flu-like levels. But after that, a government is obligated to do its part to share vaccines to reduce risks of mortality for people in other countries. We consider and reject objections to the FPR framework based on a country: having developed a vaccine, raising taxes to pay for vaccine research and purchase, wanting to eliminate economic and social burdens, and being ineffective in combating COVID-19 through public health interventions. (shrink)

Toen professor dr. Carl Friedrich, Freiherr von Weizsäcker op 28 juni 1992 tachtig jaar werd, verscheen zijn filosofische hoofdwerk, Zeit und Wissen, een boek van 1184 bladzijden. Omdat de auteur, die we verder met W. zullen aanduiden, behalve een bekend kernfysicus ook filosoof is en een actief christen, wil ik wat breder op zijn werk ingaan, mede omdat in Philosophia Reformata nog niet eerder over zijn wijsbegeerte werd gepubliceerd. Daarbij telt ook dat W. in zijn boek op bladzijde 1149 schrijft: (...) ‘Philosophie, die sich von den Worten der Bergpredigt, von der Erfahrung von Gebet und Meditation, von der Kreuzigung Jesu und seiner lebendigen Gegenwart bei allen, die ihm zu folgen bereit waren, nicht wesentlich bestimmen läszt, ist keine heute noch glaubwürdige Philosophie’. In het beschrijvende deel zal ik uit de vele boeken en met name uit Zeit und Wissen uitvoerig citeren, om pas aan het eind een beoordeling te geven. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to offer an additional perspective to the understanding of educational change processes by clarifying the significance of identity learning. Today’s innovations require changes in teachers’ professional identity. Identity learning involves a relation between social‐cognitive construction of new meanings and individual, emotional sense‐making of new experiences. This relationship between cognition and emotion asks for a strong learning environment: the question is whether schools provide these strong learning environments. To answer this question, the paper provides an (...) overview of the existing knowledge about schools as contexts for teacher learning and change. It will become clear that the emotional side of the change process has been overlooked. A model for identity learning is presented, involving both meaning‐giving and sense‐making. Building on this model, it is discussed how school leaders can build strategies for the identity learning of teachers. (shrink)

IntroductionThe various special concerns and commitments that individuals ordinarily have, for example towards family members, friends, and possibly compatriots, present an interesting challenge for justice. Justice, after all, is said to be blind and imposes demands on persons that ought to be impartial, at least in some respects, to personal ties and relationships. Yet individual special concerns are obviously of moral importance and are deeply valued by participants in these relationships. Thus any conception of justice to be plausible has to (...) be able to accommodate to some extent the various types of valuable and valued special concern characteristic of ordinary social life. In particular, it is important to see how the impartial demands of justice can be maintained while accommodating special concern. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Decent Peoples The Idea of Toleration The Cosmopolitan Critique Intervention and Cosmopolitanism Acknowledgments Notes.

Studies concerning the relationship between religion and mental health have provided substantial evidence for the existence of a positive relationship. Nevertheless, it remains largely unclear which aspects of both religion and mental health take part in this relationship. The present study uses multiple measures of religion and of mental health to obtain a more refined view of this relationship. The results show the importance of distinguishing between if a person believes and how a person believes. Religious persons who have a (...) symbolic attitude towards religion scored higher on positive aspects of mental health. No significant results were found for negative mental health. (shrink)

Die Absicht dieses Buches ist, systematisch so weit in das Wesen der modernen Subjektivitätsgedanken einzudringen, dass die eigentümliche Frage der Metaphysik selber wieder als eine sinnvolle hervortreten kann. Dazu werden zwei Schlüsseltexte der philosophischen Tradition einander gegenübergestellt: die ersten Teile von Kants "Kritik der reinen Vernunft" und Hegels "Phänomenologie des Geistes". Beide Schriften stellen die Frage nach dem Absoluten, die in der vorliegenden Monographie nicht nur rekonstruiert, sondern vorurteilslos weiterverfolgt wird. Die sowohl für Kant als auch für Hegel notwendige Verwissenschaftlichung (...) der Metaphysik verknüpfen beide Philosophen mit einer "Wende zum Subjekt", die zum neuen Grundschema für das Verhältnis von "Sein" und "Nichts" überhaupt wird. Beide Denker entwickeln allerdings unterschiedliche Ansichten darüber wie das "Nichts" verstanden werden soll. Dieses Buch widmet sich jenen Ansichten in einer eigenen systematischen These, sodass die volle Bedeutsamkeit der "Wende zum Subjekt" und die daraus resultierende Frage der Metaphysik hervortreten können. (shrink)

This book explores the concept of Knowing God and the Knowability of God from an interdisciplinary theological perspective. Approaching the issue from the perspectives of their respective theological disciplines, contributors reflect on what it means to know God, how people of faith have sought to know God in the past, and indeed whether, and to what extent, such knowledge is even possible.

As the West loses its political credibility, the search has opened for alternatives to neo-liberal parliamentary democracies, failing on their own scale of good governance. Several contemporary critical thinkers, such as Alain Badiou, turn towards a communist horizon. In this paper, we want to explore the idea of commons in contemporary Internet-based groups, as a quest for contemporary appearances of communism in the Badiouian sense. From wiki formats to the hacktivism of Anonymous, there are various Internet-based initiatives that are built (...) on a philosophy of open access to all, regardless of their identity, and a horizontal, rhizomatic organisation. We think that the organisational features of these initiatives make them suitable to carry out a struggle for new, more democratic political alternatives. (shrink)

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Procreation with donor gametes is widespread and commonly accepted, but it involves ethical questions about the child's best interest. Understanding the historical structures of the moral discussion of gamete donation may contribute to reflecting on the child's best interest. This is why I have analysed the debate on gamete donation in the Netherlands, and this analysis has uncovered some striking discontinuities. Notions of the child's best interest have undergone a radical swing. In the past, it was considered acceptable to conceal (...) the truth about the child's biological origin, but in the past two decades the general opinion has changed to the common belief that this information should be shared with the child. This changed notion of the child's best interest will be analysed using a framework encompassing three views of the child, which derive from the debate on children's rights. These three views each provide a different interpretation of the child's moral and political status. I conclude that the changed notion of the child's best interest results from a view of the child that focuses on autonomy and citizenship, and which frames the child's interests according to its legal status. I comment on this view and I champion an alternative one, namely ‘the embedded child’. This is a relational view based on care ethics that goes beyond what can be articulated in law, and that will help to establish a more balanced interpretation of the child's best interest at the practice and policy levels of gamete donation. (shrink)