Hume's is/ought distinction has long limited the role of empirical research in ethics, saying that data about what something is cannot yield conclusions about the way things ought to be. However, interest in empirical research in ethics has been growing despite this countervailing principle. We attribute some of this increased interest to a conceptual breakdown of the is/ought distinction. MacIntyre, in reviewing the history of the is/ought distinction, argues that is and ought are not strictly separate realms but exist in (...) a close relationship that is clarified by adopting a teleological orientation. We propose that, instead of recovering a teleological orientation, society tends to generate its own goals via democratic methods like those described by Rousseau or adopt agnosticism about teleology such as described by Richard Rorty. In both latter scenarios, the distinction between is and ought is obscured, and the role for empirical research grows, but for controversial reasons. MacIntyre warns that the is/ought distinction should remain, but reminds ethicists to make careful arguments about when and why it is legitimate to move from is to ought. (shrink)

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was introduced in 2018 to harmonize data privacy and security laws across the European Union (EU). It applies to any organization collecting personal data in the EU. To date, service-level consent has been used as a proportionate approach for clinical trials, which implement low-risk, routine, service-wide interventions for which individual consent is considered inappropriate. In the context of public health research, GDPR now requires that individuals have the option to choose whether their data may (...) be used for research, which presents a challenge when consent has been given by the clinical service and not by individual service users. We report here on development of a pragmatic opt-out solution to this consent paradox in the context of a partner notification intervention trial in sexual health clinics in the UK. Our approach supports the individual’s right to withhold their data from trial analysis while routinely offering the same care to all patients. (shrink)

Background: Patient autonomy has been promoted as the most important principle to guide difficult clinical decisions. To examine whether practising physicians indeed value patient autonomy above other considerations, physicians were asked to weight patient autonomy against three other criteria that often influence doctors’ decisions. Associations between physicians’ religious characteristics and their weighting of the criteria were also examined. Methods: Mailed survey in 2007 of a stratified random sample of 1000 US primary care physicians, selected from the American Medical Association masterfile. (...) Physicians were asked how much weight should be given to the following: (1) the patient’s expressed wishes and values, (2) the physician’s own judgment about what is in the patient’s best interest, (3) standards and recommendations from professional medical bodies and (4) moral guidelines from religious traditions. Results: Response rate 51% (446/879). Half of physicians (55%) gave the patient’s expressed wishes and values “the highest possible weight”. In comparative analysis, 40% gave patient wishes more weight than the other three factors, and 13% ranked patient wishes behind some other factor. Religious doctors tended to give less weight to the patient’s expressed wishes. For example, 47% of doctors with high intrinsic religious motivation gave patient wishes the “highest possible weight”, versus 67% of those with low (OR 0.5; 95% CI 0.3 to 0.8). Conclusions: Doctors believe patient wishes and values are important, but other considerations are often equally or more important. This suggests that patient autonomy does not guide physicians’ decisions as much as is often recommended in the ethics literature. (shrink)

Embodiment, Vesey maintains, is the term applied to our experience of an unmediated movement of our body and an unmediated awareness within perceptual experience. Vesey argues for embodiment as the most satisfying explanation of the mind-body relationship chiefly by arguing against substance dualism as presented by the Local Sign theory of sensation and the Ideo-motor theory of bodily movement. The former is deficient because it rests on the false empirical assumption that all perceptual capacities are learned; the latter is inadequate (...) for more complex reasons, the development of which leads Vesey through his own theory of perception and movement. Vesey's own theory rests on contrast between causal, substance dualism and his own favored, non-causal, subject-object duality, which avoids an absolute dualism because of the internal relatedness of its key terms from the outset. The first half of the book presents a concise review and criticism of current non-dualistic views of the mind-body relation other than that of embodiment; here Vesey has a brief and somewhat unsatisfying skirmish with double aspect and identity theories.—E. A. R. (shrink)

Another title in the Modern Studies in Philosophy published by Doubleday under the general editorship of Amélie O. Rorty. Thirteen essays plus part of J. L. Ackrill's translation of the Categories are included. The view is mainly from Oxford and is, in the words of the editor, "piecemeal" and "pluralistic." What this means is that there are three essays on Aristotle's logic, two on his categories, four on his metaphysics, and four on his ethics. Nothing on Aristotle's psychology is included. (...) This, however, is due more to the fact that little has been written on this Aristotelian topic in Anglo-American circles than to editorial oversight. The essays by Woods, Moravcsik, and Urmson were written especially for this volume and the Austin article also appears for the first time. A short bibliography is appended.--E. A. R. (shrink)

This is Duquesne's second book about the current crisis threatening the healthy continuance of the Roman Catholic institution of the priesthood. Roughly three-quarters of the present book is spent rehearsing, in anecdotal and quasi-sociological and psychological fashion, the accelerated thinning of the priestly ranks, which must be alarming to even the most ostrich-headed bishop. In the last part of the book Duquesne puts forth his own proposals as to what must be done if the Church, as an institution, is to (...) retain its special ministers, and thus survive. Celibacy will have to become optional; there must be greater diversification in types of ministry and priestly formation; professionalization must be increased and rationalized; smaller, more tightly-knit communities, on the model of some of the communities in the so-called underground Church, will have to become the rule rather than the exception; etc. The book breaks no real new ground, but is a highly readable summary of the situation in this area to date.--E. A. R. (shrink)

Twenty-five selections have been added to this introductory anthology, at least one in each of the eight sections. Most of these additions are from recent sources, and, in particular, the sections on "Body, Mind, and Death" and "Moral Judgments" have been beefed up through these additions. Edwards' section introductions have been revised over the original edition, but Pap's were left as is. The value of the previously excellent, annotated bibliographies has been enhanced by bringing them up to date. In all, (...) A Modern Introduction remains a first-rate text for topic-centered, introductory, philosophy courses.—E. A. R. (shrink)

The author attacks the authenticity and credibility of the biblical tradition in general, with special emphasis on the New Testament Gospels, arguing from the rational and factual contradictions in the text. Christ is an eschatologically deluded ethical teacher whose real message was some sort of esthetic humanitarianism. Unitarianism represents the faith of the future. The naivete of the author may be a virtue in itself, but not in a field where responsible scholarship is a prerequisite.—E. A. R.

A popular, ecumenical effort that avoids theologizing, this book offers a short summary of each of the books of the Bible according to content, purpose, style, author and date.—E. A. R.

A detailed, paragraph by paragraph, interpretation of the De Ente et Essentia. Bobik has supplied his own translation of the text. It is only incidental that his claim to this being the only full-scale commentary in English is negated by the new translation of the Cajetan Commentary ; but the undergraduate and the student who has not yet thoroughly studied the tradition is bound to find Bobik's Interpretation much more approachable than Cajetan's Commentary. Bobik concentrates heavily upon distinguishing and keeping (...) straight the logical and metaphysical themes in Thomas' work and is able to delineate, with more than usual success, Thomas' doctrine of first and second intentions and the always thorny problem of universals. Though his is definitely an interpretive rather than an historical and textual approach, Bobik explicitly rejects such aggiornamentizing as the existential interpretation of Thomas, specifically the reading of esse as "act of existing" rather than as the less theoretically loaded "being." This perhaps accounts for his failure to mention one possible interpretation of the prima via which does not regard the demonstration as limited to a cause of physical motion—as Bobik seems to think. Bobik's efforts may well provoke rather than be provocative for many neo-scholastically oriented philosophers, but there is a good deal of light thrown on Thomas' metaphysics that would be lost if this attitude held sway.—E. A. R. (shrink)

The Islamic Medieval Philosopher al-Ghazᾱlî, known to the Latins as Algazel, was influential in the shaping of the intellectual philosophic movements in the thirteenth century. Though Ghazali’s predecessor Ibn Sînᾱ and successor Ibn Rushd received the philosophic credit due to them, Ghazali’s own philosophic ideas have not been significantly assessed; and hence Ghazali’s “fame” lies, we are told, in being responsible for the decline of Medieval Philosophy, especially Islamic Philosophy, a claim that is extremely difficult to prove. But be that (...) as it may, the intellectual movement in Europe during the thirteenth century pursued the intellectual Islamic heritage, not just of Avicenna and Averroës, but also that of Ghazali. Granted that Ghazali’s philosophic ideas did not assume a definite pattern in the philosophic literature—as was the case with Avicenna and Averroës—still a careful study of Ghazali’s works will reveal how profound and widespread his influence was on Western Medieval scholars. A case in point is the influence of Ghazali on Saint Thomas Aquinas—who studied the works of the Islamic philosophers, especially Ghazali’s, at The University of Naples. Thus in the course of the subsequent analysis, similarities between Ghazali and Aquinas will reveal themselves. The aim of this paper, however, does not consist in delineating their refutations of the arguments of the philosophers that one finds in Ghazali’s and Aquinas’s works. Rather I shall primarily deal with their discussion of the principle of causality and then indicate how the works of Ghazali have played an important role in the shaping of the philosophic ideas of Aquinas. (shrink)

Al Kindi was, according to Rescher, one of the first of the Medieval Arabian philosophers who took science rather than theology as the locus for his philosophical efforts. Rescher's well-ordered bibliography is meant to provide the most essential part of the research apparatus for the as-yet-unwritten comprehensive study of Al-Kindi and the place of his work in the history of philosophy.—E. A. R.

Elsasser outlines in an informal but meticulous fashion an organismic biology which promises, in his opinion, to combine the best features of epigenetic vitalism and preformationist mechanism. Mechanistic reductionism is for Elsasser an unverifiable metaphysical hypothesis; i.e., if the postulate of infinite homogenous classes is dropped from the axiomatics of Van Neumann's proof that the state of any system is, in principle, Quantum Mechanically determinable, it becomes combinatorically obvious that biological systems and classes are radically inhomogenous [[sic]], a fact which (...) operationally bars the way to any complete reductionism. The door is thus opened to an open-ended theoretical biology in which all questions do not have a truth-functional equivalent answer according to the axioms and laws of the science, and prediction in the science becomes statistical in a nonabsolute way. Elsasser is a physicist with more than a casual acquaintance with biology and his argument benefits by his obvious expertise in both of these areas. Philosophically, however, he is a lightweight and relies, in particular, too much on the ontological ice that might be cut by operationalism. Theories are not verified in the stringent operational sense; they are confirmed in a way which is not logically tied to the requirement that all laws be inductively established. Elsasser, however, has so much to say on the problem of reductionism in biology that is of obvious value that the book is easily recommended over these caveats.—E. A. R. (shrink)

A good anthology of articles drawn mainly from the British and American journals over the past twenty-five years. Some of the names appearing are Ziff, Margolis, Weitz, Black, Hospers, Mothersill, Hofstadter, Aiken, Aldrich, Urmson, and Passmore. The editor has contributed an introduction and an additional article of his own. The book is divided into five sections, the titles of which indicate fairly enough their thematic contents. The sections are concerned with the problems of defining, appreciating, and evaluating works of art, (...) "Problems concerning Fiction, Metaphor, Belief, and Artistic Truth," the epistemological tangles surrounding Aesthetic Experience, and "The Nature of Aesthetics and Aesthetic Theories." The price is a bit steep for a paper cover book.--E. A. R. (shrink)

At once a contribution to the history of science, the history of philosophy, the history of classical Greece, and transhistorical, good, clean, reading enjoyment, this book is obviously designed for the library that hitherto had everything. From coin-operated holy water, vending-machines, Athenian electioneering gadgets for "automating honesty," and wine-splashing games of kottabos to the steam-powered toys and automated theatres of the second century A. D. Alexandrian gadgeteer, Heron, Brumbaugh has provided a fascinating catalogue of and commentary on the neglected artifactual (...) and technological genius of the ancient world. The book includes reproductions of many of Heron's "blueprints" as well as plates showing some of the items that have been excavated on the site of the ancient Agora. The illustrations and plates should have been numbered for easier reference but this is a minor defect in a wholly delightful book. The extensive, annotated bibliography is a pleasant bonus.—E. A. R. (shrink)

In the Preface, Kargon states the two objectives of this monograph in the history of science: "First, I wish to bring to the attention of historians of science the existence and importance of two circles of natural philosophers which played an important role in the history of atomism. Secondly, I wish to trace the evolution of atomism and illustrate the mechanism of its establishment in England in the latter seventeenth century. In doing so, I will re-evaluate the contributions of four (...) major figures and many minor ones, including Walter Charleton, the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, William Petty, Charles Cavendish, and John Pell". Kargon turns in cash on both promissory notes with a careful yet highly readable piece of scholarship. Some obscurities remain, however, in particular his attempt to link the Northumberland and Newcastle groups with the suggestion that Hobbes' atomism might have been influenced through his connection with John Pell. Concurrence rather than influence was more likely the case. It is also suggested that there might have been a link between Bacon's early atomism and that of Hariot's Northumberland group. But once again the arguments in favor of such a connection are inconclusive at best. Of great importance for the history of atomism is the influence maintained to have been exerted by the 1653 publication of Bacon's atomistic works; this influence was felt by the Newcastle group and the Royal Society. Most interesting, however, is the securely attested influence of the Baconian method on Barrow, Newton, and the Royal Society in general.—E. A. R. (shrink)

The market has been flooded for some time with introductory anthologies such as the present one. What this one has over most of the others is more pages with a competitive price. Twenty-eight of the eighty-three selections come from "classical" sources. Except for a brief selection from Tillich, the modern selections come from the analytical and proto-analytical tradition. A good many classic papers make their appearance; Margolis has not indulged himself in many idiosyncratic choices. The topic divisions are predictable: Meaning (...) and Perception, Mind-Body Problem, Knowledge and Certainty, Conduct and Values, God and Religious Language, Human Behavior and Physical Phenomena, and an introductory set of readings on Philosophical Inquiry. Margolis' section introductions of three or so pages provide concise orientation in the problem areas. Unannotated bibliographies are provided for each section.--E. A. R. (shrink)

This book is designed for the general reader or as a text in a beginning course in philosophy. It is divided into five parts which treat the history of philosophy, rational psychology, ethics, philosophy of nature and metaphysics. Sets of review questions and topics for essays and discussion are included for each chapter. The historical section has been the chief beneficiary of the revision with an expanded treatment of the Sophists and the Pre-Socratics.—E. A. R.

Three of the ten, previously unpublished papers in this volume deal with problems relating to causation. The most intriguing of these is the lead paper, in one of the symposia, by Zeno Vendler. In character with his name, Vendler argues, on the basis of some fairly gymnastic grammatical transformations and his "linguistic intuitions" that causes do not really have effects, but rather, results, which are to be distinguished categorically from the former—a thesis which might well serve as a prolegomenon to (...) an event ontology. S. Bromberger and W. H. Dray comment, Dray presenting the most important dissent on the basis that Vendler's analysis rules out agents being causes. Other papers include an analysis, by J. R. Lucas of the role of necessary and sufficient conditions in causal discourse, and an exceptionally clear presentation of a basically inductive theory of counterfactuals by J. L. Mackie. "Propositions," "Some Paradoxes," "Nonentities," and "Some Remarks about the Senses" are contributed by R. Cartwright, J. F. Thomson, A. N. Prior, and H. P. Grice respectively. D. Gasking and M. E. Lean contribute to a symposium on "Avowals," R. C. Buck's "Non-Other Minds" treats essentially the same problem, while Putnam's paper on "Dreaming and 'Depth Grammar'" serves as a highly critical review of Malcolm's Dreaming while at the same time offering a sketch of a program for linguistics.—E. A. R. (shrink)

In general, the eleven, previously unpublished papers are not as strong as those in the first series. Bromberger attempts to detail the necessary and sufficient conditions for something's being an explanation; Anscombe offers some provocative but inconclusive remarks on the intentionality of sensation; Malpas examines some criteriological puzzles which arise in considering the location of sound as a bit of unlearned perceptual behavior. The rest of the papers are second order assessments and attacks upon positions maintained by other analytical philosophers. (...) Of these Putnam's attack on Malcolm's brand of behaviorism and Butler's attempted dissolution of Goodman's "grue" paradox make their points most effectively. Moravcsik contends, against Strawson, that events are at least as primitive in our conceptual scheme as physical bodies. Wiggins questions some Fregean analyses of the logic of identity-statements; taking off from Strawson, Woods distinguishes a principle of individuation from a criterion of identity and attempts to clarify their separate but related roles by an analysis of the sorts of questions that require their use in giving answers. Rundle is concerned to modify certain Quinean answers to paradoxes of tense requirements that arise in the quantification of modal statements; Savan questions Vlastos' ascription of fallacies to the Socratic argument on the unity of Wisdom and Temperance in the Protagoras. Finally, Shorter points out the general inconclusiveness of "transformational analysis" by exhibiting specific shortcomings of Vendler's analysis of causality in the first volume of this series.—E. A. R. (shrink)

The essay on abstraction provides an historical review of the notion of abstraction with an attempt being made to show that there is a basic similarity between the doctrines of Aristotle and Aquinas, on the one hand, and Locke on the other. The conclusion that is then drawn is that the nominalistic critique initiated by Berkeley and refined by Hume in direct answer to the Lockean theory of general ideas is effective against all doctrines of abstraction which hope to end (...) up in a moderate realism. Other concerns are 1) to show the basic affinities between Berkeleyean and Humean nominalism, and late medieval nominalism, in particular that of Ockham, 2) to show that such a nominalism is inadequate and must be replaced by, what has been termed in contemporary analytical circles, psychological nominalism. The essay on relation shows the continuity in the history of the doctrine of relations from the time of Melissus to the Rusellian critique of the substance-accident ontology, critique which Weinberg thinks definitively replaced the unilateral-attribute doctrine of relations. The essay on induction attempts to show how the medieval commentators modified Aristotle's intuitionistic and vestigally [[sic]] Platonic doctrine of induction into a doctrine of covert inference, and anticipated, in part, Bacon's and Mill's theories.—E. A. R. (shrink)

A soberly written biography that sacrifices nothing to scholarship to achieve an impressive readability. The chapters are arranged to treat, alternately and in chronological order, the biographical data available on St. Thomas and the data available on his intellectual development. Bourke adds no new facts and very few conjectures to the material at his disposal. He makes an objective assessment of rival accounts of St. Thomas' activities, paring off, where necessary, overly pious accretions. His selection of "facts" is then put (...) together in a coherent account of St. Thomas' life. The person of St. Thomas continues to wear the garb of the perfect intellectual, but that this is not the mask of colorless impersonality will be apparent to anyone who encounters Bourke's portrait of St. Thomas—E. A. R. (shrink)

Political argument and institutions in the UnitedKingdom have frequently been represented as the products of ablend of nationalistic conservatism, liberal individualism andsocialism, in which consensus has been prized over ideology. This situation changed, as the standard story has it, with therise of Thatcherism in the late 1970s, and again with the arrivalof Tony Blair's ``New Labour'' pragmatism in the late 1990s. Solidarity as an element of political discourse makes itsappearance in the UK late in the day. It has been most (...) stronglylinked to the Third Way debate, as framed most influentially inthe work of Prof. Anthony Giddens.In this paper we review the history and pre-history of the debateon solidarity in the UK, focussing mostly on its implications forwelfare state reform. In particular we discuss the proposals forthe long-term care of the Elderly issued by the Royal Commissionon long-term care in 1999. In this context we critically examinethe idea that solidarity is a new concept in British politicalculture, and that it is a concept which has real political ``bite''in the project of welfare reform. We examine this through aconsideration of Giddens's attempted synthesis of politicalargument and social theory. (shrink)

This is an excellent addition to Bobbs-Merrill's "Text and Commentary Series." In addition to the text of the Principles, there are eleven critical essays, three of which are original with this volume. Turbayne has arranged the essays to parallel the unfolding of the major themes in the Principles. Thus, he himself opens with "Berkeley's Metaphysical Grammar," which picks up and develops the theme of the centrality of the study of language to the philosophical enterprise, a point Berkeley makes in his (...) "Preface." Next, W. H. Hay and Richard Van Iten are paired together with different perspectives on Berkeley's nominalism. By way of comment on esse is percipi, G. E. Moore and W. T. Stace present their respective refutations of idealism and realism. Richard Popkin discusses skepticism and Berkeley. Popper examines the ways in which Berkeley anticipated Mach and Einstein, as well as significant features of contemporary philosophy of science. Turbayne and Cornman offer differing appraisals of the philosophy of mind that is sketched in the Principles. Paul Olscamp attempts to systematize the elements of Berkeley's critical theory. Finally, J. D. Mabbott treats of "The Place of God in Berkeley's Philosophy" and argues for a radical voluntarism in Berkeley--a not surprising analysis, but one which often gets buried under the epistemological issues raised in the Principles. Turbayne has also supplied an excellent introduction, a chronology of Berkeley's life, a working bibliography, and an analytical index. This enhances the usefulness of an already first-rate book.--E. A. R. (shrink)

Sixteen articles by fifteen authors, two of which, the ones by Plantinga and Kenny, have never appeared in this form before. Three of the selections have been translated for the first time from French: those by B. A. O. Williams, E. Bréhier, and P. H. J. Hoenen. The latter two selections are the sole representatives of French Cartesian scholarship. This is unfortunate, as Descartes' positive contribution to modern philosophy is better reflected in recent phenomenological and existential philosophy. The dominant tone (...) of this volume is negative and piecemeal, though in terms of this limited approach to Cartesian studies there are many excellent essays in this volume. The balance of the contributors includes Ayer, Moore, Ryle, A. K. Stout, Malcolm, Hintikka, Gewirth, Prichard, Frankfurt, and Alston. The editor has included a very comprehensive bibliography.—E. A. R. (shrink)

This is a competent and sympathetic introduction to the life and thought of Leibniz. It reads, on the surface, like an encyclopedia article or a chapter in a critical history of philosophy. But there is a meta-critical strain governing the exposition. Within a limited space, Van Peursen has molded a presentation which manages to balance considerations of what was central to Leibniz' philosophy from Leibniz' point of view with issues which have special relevance for contemporary philosophy. For example, Van Peursen (...) devotes his longest chapter, "The Logic of an Optimal World: Truth, Freedom, God," to the teleological and ethical roots of Leibniz' ontology. Leibniz preferred to stress the nature/grace and best-of-all-possible-worlds aspects of this teleological ontology. But contemporary philosophy has difficulty relating to this way of expressing the Platonic notion of the primacy of the good over the true. So Van Peursen, while not neglecting Leibniz' focus, also draws attention to a modern reworking of this point: the idea, familiar to contemporary semiotic, that syntactics must ultimately be grounded in pragmatics. Beginning students will find this introduction readable and genuinely helpful. Teachers of philosophy will benefit from the author's historical acuity as well as the clarity of exposition. An index and a brief bibliography are included.--E. A. R. (shrink)

Hart calls attention to the hitherto unread Bentham which is being made available for the first time in the Athlone Press edition of his works. A re-reading of the complete Bentham is not likely to change the basic picture of his philosophy that is now available, but it will, argues Hart, provide the secure ground for a more fundamental understanding of utilitarianism. And this is a sine qua non for an as-yet-wanting adequate critique of utilitarianism.—E. A. R.