Modern animal rights debates began in the 1970s, mainly as part of the budding field of applied ethics in Anglo-American philosophy. In just a short time, these animal rights discourses received international academic respect, especially through analytically trained philosophers. Central for this development was the analysis that rights language can be principally used species neutrally. This paper’s contribution is to examine the central terms of Tom Regan’s still widely discussed theory for their actuality and usefulness. Hence strengthening these arguments for (...) modern animal rights theory as a serious approach in national ethical and legal disputes. Translated from German by Gary Steiner, Bucknell University. (shrink)

A Nobel prize winner, a great man and a great scientist, Erwin Schrödinger has made his mark in physics, but his eye scans a far wider horizon: here are two stimulating and discursive essays which summarize his philosophical views on the nature of the world. Schrödinger's world view, derived from the Indian writings of the Vedanta, is that there is only a single consciousness of which we are all different aspects. He admits that this view is mystical and metaphysical (...) and incapable of logical deduction. But he also insists that this is true of the belief in an external world capable of influencing the mind and of being influenced by it. Schrödinger's world view leads naturally to a philosophy of reverence for life. (shrink)

A Nobel prize winner, a great man and a great scientist, Erwin Schrödinger has made his mark in physics, but his eye scans a far wider horizon: here are two stimulating and discursive essays which summarize his philosophical views on the nature of the world. Schrödinger's world view, derived from the Indian writings of the Vedanta, is that there is only a single consciousness of which we are all different aspects. He admits that this view is mystical and metaphysical (...) and incapable of logical deduction. But he also insists that this is true of the belief in an external world capable of influencing the mind and of being influenced by it. Schrödinger's world view leads naturally to a philosophy of reverence for life. (shrink)

A Nobel prize winner, a great man and a great scientist, Erwin Schrödinger has made his mark in physics, but his eye scans a far wider horizon: here are two stimulating and discursive essays which summarize his philosophical views on the nature of the world. Schrödinger's world view, derived from the Indian writings of the Vedanta, is that there is only a single consciousness of which we are all different aspects. He admits that this view is mystical and metaphysical (...) and incapable of logical deduction. But he also insists that this is true of the belief in an external world capable of influencing the mind and of being influenced by it. Schrödinger's world view leads naturally to a philosophy of reverence for life. (shrink)

Cusanus, Abstract As a rule Cusanus is interpreted in a theological way, under strong theological presuppositions and within the range of religion. This may be quite understandable since he was a cardinal and had important functions in the Papal States. But, what are the results, when we read his texts under pure philosophical conditions? We may see then that some of his texts are meant neither to assert a belief nor to search for reasons for it, but only to reflect (...) upon the presuppositions of this belief and its different traditions. Instead of asserting his belief Cusanus is beginning to reflect upon his presupositions. We try to give an exemple for this shift with the first proposition in the collection of propositions that follow the dialog De non aliud: „definitio quae se et omnia definit, ea est, quae per omnem mentem quaeritur.“ We will see a quite another Cusanus. Cusanus picks up „definitio“ in the sense of self-determination, developped in the dialog. He begins in quite a traditional manner and ends in a supremely abstract and speculative intuition. The 'Not-other' determines itself in a vision; this vision is an order in which every thing gets its proper place; we as human beings aspire to repeat this vision in our mental life in contact with the world. In this way Cusanus does what all great philosophers do: he reflects in a given set of opinions what is the meaning of „to be“. (shrink)

Franz von Baader (1765-1841) entwickelte seine Gedanken zur Gestaltung der Gesellschaft zur Zeit eines enormen technisch-ökonomischen und säkularisierenden Umbruchs. Den Weg aus der Krise sah er in einem neuen Wirksamwerden des «christlich-sozialen Prinzips». Aus seinem Gesamtwerk schöpfend, erhebt die vorliegende Arbeit den umfassenden Sinngehalt dieses von ihm geprägten Begriffs. Sein Ansatz ist nicht das Naturrecht, sondern die durch Christus vermittelte Liebe. Er begreift sie als dynamische Kraft befreiender und organischer Gemeinschaftsbildung. Deren komplexe Wirkweise wird in ihrem systematischen Zusammenhang offengelegt. Das (...) Ergebnis zeigt Züge einer originellen Sozialtheologie, die zumeist noch heute aktuell sind. Dies bestätigt ein Vergleich mit der späteren katholischen Soziallehre sowie den neueren Perspektiven im Gefolge des II. Vatikanischen Konzils. (shrink)

At the general elections in Belgium, the voter bas the possibility to bring out a vote fora party or a vote for a candidate of the party. At the general elections of November 24, 1991, for the House of Representatives, the voters have voted for 48% by preference, whereas, for the Senate 41 % of them have done so. The evolution is stagnating. The use of preferential votes is varying from one electoral district to another: from 62% in the district (...) of Tongeren-Maaseik to 34% in Mechelen.There is also a difference from one political party to another. The highest percentage is obtained by the christian-democratic parties: 58%; the lowest by the last remaining communists: 27%.The preferential v'ótes individual candidates obtain differ widely. This is not only a result of their popularity, but also of their political position, rendering of services and media-attraction. Preferential voting is characteristic to politically conscious voters. (shrink)

At the general elections in Belgium, the voter has the possibility to bring out a vote for a party or a vote for a candidate of the party. At the general elections of December 13, 1987, for the House of Representatives, the voters have voted for 48 % by preference, whereas, for the Senate 38 % of them have done so. The evolution is still stagnating. The use of preferential votes is varying from one electoral district toanother: from 65 % (...) in the district of Tongeren-Maaseik to 33 % in Mechelen.There is also a difference from one politica! party to another. The highest percentage is obtained by the Christian-democratic parties : 60 % ; the lowest by the ecologists: 23 %.The preferential votes individual candidates obtain differ widely. This is not only as a result of their popularity, but also of their political position and rendering of services.Preferential voting is characteristic to politically conscious voters. (shrink)

The sociography of the Belgian post-war minister is characterized by an upper middle-class or middle-class origin, a French-speaking and male preponderance and a university-education. The most frequent professional occupations are lawyer, professor and executive.The political career which led to a ministerial post, went in the first place through the legislative body and in the second place through thepolitical parties. After their ministerial career 39 % of the ministers played a promine part in the parliament; 35 %, however, prosecuted an extra-parliamentary (...) and prestigious « after-function ».The Belgian ministerial career pattern bears some resemblances to the Dutch, German and French career pattern, but also many differences. The most outstanding difference is the importance of the bureaucratic component in the structure of the ministerial elite in those three countries, where in Belgium this is not very important. (shrink)

_Why originalism is a flawed, incoherent, and dangerously ideological method of constitutional interpretation__ “Chemerinsky... offers a concise, point-by-point refutation of the theory [of originalism]. He argues that it cannot deliver what it promises—and if it could, no one would want what it is selling.”—David Cole, _New York Review of Books__ Originalism, the view that the meaning of a constitutional provision is fixed when it is adopted, was once the fringe theory of a few extremely conservative legal scholars but is now (...) a well-accepted mode of constitutional interpretation. Three of the Supreme Court’s nine justices explicitly embrace the originalist approach, as do increasing numbers of judges in the lower courts. Noted legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky gives a comprehensive analysis of the problems that make originalism unworkable as a method of constitutional interpretation. He argues that the framers themselves never intended constitutional interpretation to be inflexible and shows how it is often impossible to know what the “original intent” of any particular provision was. Perhaps worst of all, though its supporters tout it as a politically neutral and objective method, originalist interpretation tends to disappear when its results fail to conform to modern conservative ideology. (shrink)

To restructure and systematize the concept of personalization, in this study we introduce a two-dimensional and relational typology of personalization of political representation, comprising a horizontal as well as a vertical dimension, and put it to an empirical test. We concertedly utilize content analyses of political newspaper and television coverage as well as of party press releases during the 2008 Austrian election campaign. With regard to the Austrian case, the findings outline that personalization of political representation is not a universal (...) phenomenon; it rather appears as a context- and logic-sensitive communicational phenomenon. Political public relations shows significantly higher levels of horizontal as well as vertical diversification than the media by being more individualized and less monopolized by leaders and executive elites. Additionally, political representation in the tabloid press is more personalized than in quality papers, and the communication of catch-all parties is more individualized than of niche parties. (shrink)

Clinical ethics consultation service remains undeveloped in developing countries. It is recognised that its introduction poses challenges. Malaysia, a multicultural society with diverse religions, values and perceptions further complicate the introduction of formal clinical ethics consultation service. Clinicians attending a national congress workshop completed a Strengths–Weaknesses–Opportunities–Threats analysis. The aim was to gain insight into clinician’s expectations and promote initiatives leading to the introduction of clinical ethics consultation service. Clinicians agree that clinical ethics consultation service can improve quality of care, reduce (...) healthcare costs and advocate for patients and providers. The analysis highlighted constraints in sufficient critical mass of relevant expertise and restricted opportunities for training. The opportunities lie in education, curriculum development and availability of dedicated proponents. Cultural barriers, limited resources, lack of awareness, differenc... (shrink)

Adam Smith has long been remembered as an economist, but the past decades have witnessed an ever-increasing recognition and discussion of his moral philosophy with renewed interest in his first maj...

The European Union is working towards harmonizing legislation across Europe, in order to improve cross-border interchange of legal information. This goal is supported for instance via standards such as the European Law Identifier and the European Case Law Identifier, which provide technical specifications for Web identifiers and suggestions for vocabularies to be used to describe metadata pertaining to legal documents in a machine readable format. Notably, these ECLI and ELI metadata standards adhere to the RDF data format which forms the (...) basis of Linked Data, and therefore have the potential to form a basis for a pan-European legal Knowledge Graph. Unfortunately, to date said specifications have only been partially adopted by EU member states. In this paper we describe a methodology to transform the existing legal information system used in Austria to such a legal knowledge graph covering different steps from modeling national specific aspects, to population, and finally the integration of legal data from other countries through linked data. We demonstrate the usefulness of this approach by exemplifying practical use cases from legal information search, which are not possible in an automated fashion so far. (shrink)

As part of a book symposium on his Jan Tinbergen (1903–1994) and the Rise of Economic Expertise (2021), Erwin Dekker responds to commentaries by Mariana Mortágua and Francisco Louçã, Thomas Kayzel, Jon Murphy, Michele Alacevich, Mauro Boianovsky, and William Peden.

The article examines the legal status of living wills and health care proxies in Germany, the United States and Japan. The investigation begins with the question of what protection these three legal orders provide for the right to self-determination. Whereas in Germany and the United States, legislation and legal practice take the theory of informed consent very seriously, the doctor-patient relationship in Japan is much less oriented toward the idea of patient autonomy. This basic attitude is reflected in the legal (...) disposition given advance directives. In the USA, most of the individual states have legislation on the living will and health care proxies. In Germany, the judiciary and scholarly literature at least carefully affirm that they are legally binding. In Japan, at least currently, there is nothing at all similar to this approach. The authors then conduct a micro-legal comparison of cases of first impression decided in the USA and Germany and emphasize the amazing similarity of the judicial decisions in two cases . Finally, the question is raised for German law of whether, and in what form, further legislative development of the judicially established right to die appears reasonable. Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht den rechtlichen Stellenwert von living wills und health care proxies in Deutschland, in den USA und in Japan. Ausgangspunkt der Untersuchung ist die Frage, welchen Schutz das Selbstbestimmungsrecht in den erwähnten Rechtsordnungen genießt. Während in Deutschland und in den USA Gesetzgebung und Rechtspraxis die Theorie vom informed consent sehr ernst nehmen, ist das Arzt-Patienten-Verhältnis in Japan weit weniger vom Gedanken der Autonomie des Patienten bestimmt. Diese Basiswertung schlägt auch im Bereich der rechtlichen Beurteilung von advance directives durch. In den USA sind living will und health care proxy in den meisten Einzelstaaten gesetzlich geregelt, in Deutschland wird ihre rechtliche Verbindlichkeit von Judikatur und Literatur zumindest vorsichtig bejaht. In Japan fehlen - zumindest derzeit - entsprechende Ansätze noch gänzlich.Die Verfasser stellen sodann einen Mikrorechtsvergleich zwischen den in den USA und in Deutschland entschiedenen cases of first impression an und betonen den erstaunlichen Gleichklang der rechtlichen Beurteilung dieser beiden Fälle .Schließlich wird für deutsches Recht die Frage gestellt, ob - und in welcher Form - eine legislative Weiterentwicklung des judiziell bereits etablierten right to die angemessen erschiene. (shrink)