This book is the result of a collective research effort performed during many years in both Sweden and Spain. It is the result of attempting to develop a new field of research that could we denominate «human act informatics.» The goal has been to use the technologies of information to the study of the human act in general, including embodied acts and disembodied acts. The book presents a theory of the quantification of the informational value of human (...) acts as order, opposing the living order against entropy. We present acting as a set of decisions and choices aimed to create order and to impose Modernity. Karl Popper’s frequency theory of probability is applied to characterize human acts regarding their degree of freedom and to set up a scale of order in human decisions. The traditional theory of economics and social science characterize the human act as rational, utilitarian and ethical. Our results emphasize that the unique significance of an act lies in its capacity to generate order. An adequate methodology is then presented to defend such hypothesis according to which, the rationality respective irrationality of acting, is in fact only a function of the act’s organizational capacity. From this perspective, it has been necessary to define «order» respective «disorder» as operative concepts that allowed the comparison of the organizational differences generated by each kind of act. According to the presented conclusions, the spontaneity of living, as unconscious thinking, dreaming, loving, etc. and the mainstream of the human acts, are utilitarian, but in an irrational way; they are rooted in unconscious drifts and therefore must be considered irrational-utility acts. (shrink)

In this article I explore the possibilities of experimentation as a non-foundational praxis for introducing novel ways of being into existence. Beginning with a discussion, following Bataille, of the excess of any thought, I argue that any action in the world is necessarily uncertain. Using the insights of Derridean deconstruction combined with Badiousian truth procedure I argue that experimentation offers a means for acting from this uncertain position. Experimentation takes advantage of the play and uncertainty of our understanding of the (...) world as a means of moving towards more progressive political positions. Normal 0 false false false EN-IE X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}. (shrink)

The subject of human acts has been one of the controversial topics of kalām since the first centuries of Islam. A lot of concerning human acts –from divine attributes to divine decree and destiny, from the issue of good and evil (ḥusn and Qubḥ) to the boundaries of the reasoning, from the accountability with impossible things to the rational accountability, from the topics of substance and accident to causality- has been said and written in the history of Islamic (...) tought. In this study, the subject was discussed especially within the scope of man’s on his own action in connection with the divine knowledge, will, and power. On this issue, the Muʻtazila argues that human beings are independent in doing their good and evil acts with the power that God has given to them because of His will and wisdom, and that the evil actions that they have done cannot be associated with the divine attributes in any way. Sunnī theologians assert that God creates human actions through man’s orginated power. They also arguethat evil acts are not independent of the Divine Creation although human beings are the reason of evil in terms of thier acquisition (kasb) and will (irāda). Nevertheless, the representetives of the Sunnī kalām (Asharites and Māturīdis) differ on their account of acquisition, which expresses man’s agency in his acts. In contrary to the Mātūrīdiya, the Ashʻariya holds that acquisition is a created act of God. On the other hand, the Mashshai (peripatetic) philosophers, who are opposed by teologians on some issues such as divine attributes and the working of activity/acts in nature, consider human’s actions part of the eternal chain of cause-effect that emanate (al fayḍ) from the First Principle. However, according to them, every link of this chain is formed by the divine providence (al-ināyah). They also attribute morally evil acts not to the First Principle which is complete (tām) and full good (hayr), but to agents in the cause-effect chain. In summary, according to both teologians and philosophers, the ultimate source of human acts is the divine will and power. The acts that are morally or religiously evil, are not independent of man’s will. Thus, human beings are accountable for their actions. Philosophers and teologians, who agree on these issues, have explained their views and build their opinions on different concepts and principles. They have shown a very different attitude in their discourse and secondary principles, while all of them basically try to express the same idea. This difference has revealed within the frame of the following questions: Is man’s accountability for his actions because of his created power or will? Can evil actions, which are willed by human beings and therefore created by God, attributed to Him? Does the fact that the world emanates from God, the First Principle, due to His knowledge and essence, necessitate Him to be a willless and ineffective agent, and therefore to be a cause cause that has no effect on man's actions?Although teologians and philosophers have put forward different views in the context of the answers to these questions, they agree on the issues we have mentioned above. As this study shows, there is actually a common purpose in this subject, man’s actions, which causes deep divisions between theologians and philosophers in Islamic history. Primary sources of the study are the basic texts of the schools mentioned above. Additionally, the study were limited to the subject the effect of human on acts. It consists of two parts: the main part and the conclusion part. In the main section, the approaches of schools were examined from two aspects, in in terms of divine attribute and human effectiveness, and in the conclusion section, the common purposes behind the discussions were determined. (shrink)

A common view of nonhuman animals is that they lack rights because they lack conscious control over themselves. Two thoughts put pressure on this view. First, we recognize the rights of radically cognitively limited humans even though they lack conscious control over themselves. So it would seem mere prejudice to deny rights to nonhuman mammals on the grounds that animals lack autonomy. Tom Regan has been the most eloquent, powerful, and resolute defender of this thought. Second, evidence is growing that (...) healthy adults exercise non-conscious control over themselves most of the time. To deny rights to animals on the grounds that they can only exercise non-conscious control over themselves while affirming the rights of humans who similarly exercise non-conscious control over themselves most of the time also seems prejudicial. Notice that whereas the first thought compares animals to neurally diverse, cognitively challenged humans the second thought compares animals to typically developing, normal humans. In this paper I argue that accumulating empirical data lend increasing support to the second thought. (shrink)

This book offers a novel account of Aquinas's theory of the human act. It argues that Aquinas takes a human act to be a composite of two power-exercises, where one relates to the other as form to matter. The formal component is an act of the will, and the material component is a power-exercise caused by the will, which Aquinas refers to as the 'commanded act.' The book also argues that Aquinas conceptualizes the act of free choice as (...) a hylomorphic composite: it is, materially, an act of the will, but it inherits a form from reason. As the book aims to show, the core idea of Aquinas's hylomorphic action theory is that the exercise of one power can structure the exercise of another power, and this provides a helpful way to think of the presence of cognition in conation and of intention in bodily movement. (shrink)

the proclivity of many people to classify human acts as good or bad calls into mind the import of ETHICS. The penchant for classification warrants the evaluation of the bases for saying that one is bad or good action. Normally, human act is ethical if it is in accordance with what one would relatively expect in view of the events or the circumstances and unethical if the action is not called for by the circumstances, or a person whose (...) behavior is disorderly and inconsistent. The same observations harbor on perception rather than on paradigms and frameworks which ethicists have somehow perfected to classify bad behavior into one division and good behavior into another. The study of ETHICS will therefore increase proficiency at least in moral decision making. Likewise, knowledge of the course will give students certain techniques for evaluating others’ action as moral or immoral, including their own. ETHICS is the science of action but the action herein alluded to is not the action that concerns those that are unconscious and spontaneous. Action here is that resulting from intellect and will herein referred to as human act. ETHICS is both a theoretical and a practical discipline. The language of ethics refers to rights, duties, and values. One of the goals of ethics is to explore the nature of moral experience, its universality, and its diversity. Another is to provide intellectual analysis of values, and value conflicts in order to define man’s duties. Also, it is oriented toward the determination of right decisions. In order to do that, it is necessary to go step by step, analyzing, first, the facts of the case, second, the values at stake, and third, the duties. In short, ETHICS has the very practical purpose of helping us to choose, decide, and act morally. It should enable us to discover defects in the action of others and to avoid defects in our own action. (shrink)

A partir de son apparemment étrange observation d'une influence cachée des étoiles sur l'action humaine une attentive reconsidération du concept de l'actus humanus de Saint Thomas dans la Prima Secundae révèle une vue plus ample des processus internes à l'agent humain qui contribuent à la spécification individuelle de l'action humaine et, donc, de la liberté humaine. Il semble que parmi les adeptes de la théorie thomiste de l'action, l'influence importante que l'appétit sensible peut exercer en cette direction, tout en restant (...) entièrement caché aux actes conscients de l'intellect et de la volonté de la personne, n'a pas été reconnue jusqu'aujourd'hui. Dans sa théorie de l'action Saint Thomas fournit un cadre solide pour une réflexion ultérieure sur l'influence de l'inconscient dynamique sur la liberté et pour une intégration critique interdisciplinaire des intuitions valides de la psychologie des profondeurs. En plus, il semble que la redécouverte de son concept plus large de l'actus humunus rende possible de repenser à profit certains éléments classique de son éthique. (shrink)

The 20th Century is the starting point for the most ambitious attempts to extrapolate human life into artificial systems. Norbert Wiener’s Cybernetics, Claude Shannon’s Information Theory, John von Neumann’s Cellular Automata, Universal Constructor to the Turing Test, Artificial Intelligence to Maturana and Varela’s Autopoietic Organization, all shared the goal of understanding in what sense humans resemble a machine. This scientific and technological movement has embraced all disciplines without exceptions, not only mathematics and physics but also biology, sociology, psychology, economics (...) etc. New terms were developed, such as “information”, “organization”, “entropy”, “communication”, “encryption”, “computation” and “algorithmics” to mention a few, all which had an enormous impact on artificial systems. Our work follows this historical track but with a reversed order of priorities. Instead of deducing a reduced group of human acts into an artificial environment, we deduce the human aspects of machines by extrapolating algorithmic methodologies into everyday life acts. The present informational theories were insufficiently powered to achieve this objective without developing a new theoretical approach. Hence, our research is directed towards an expansion of the current informational theories. (shrink)

The study examines the end or purpose of the acts of the virtue of religion within Thomas Aquinas' ethics of human action. What is the end of religious worship? Is it God, or is it the worshippers themselves? On the one hand, one would presume that God cannot be the end of religion because, from the perspective of Classical Theism (of which Aquinas is a main proponent), God cannot benefit from the activity of creatures. But on the other hand, (...) if the worshipper is the end of religious acts, would not worship be a self-centered or an egotistic act? The standard Thomistic account of the problem, first laid out by Cajetan and later adopted by countless followers, is that God is the finis cuius ("the aim toward which") of the acts of the virtue of religion, whereas the religious worshipper is the finis quo (the beneficiary) of the acts. I argue that this solution, which is based on a single text of Aquinas (ST II-II.81.7c), is insufficient. After examining Aquinas' theory of action (the doctrine of object, end, and circumstances presented in ST I-II.18), I show how the object of a particular human act can be interpreted as the finis operis (the end of the agent's act). Utilizing this principle of the identity between the object and the finis operis, I argue that the finis operis of religion can be summed up as a threefold sequence of ends: the honor, reverence, and glory of God. As a result, the ultimate beneficiary of acts of religious worship is neither God nor the individual worshipper, but rather the totality of the universe, encapsulated by Aquinas in his notion of divine "glory," that is, the extrinsic manifestation of God's intrinsic goodness within the universe. (shrink)

연명의료결정법이 법제화되어 시행되고 있다는 점에 착안하여 필자는 인간다운 죽음, 품위 있는 죽음이 시대의 중요한 쟁점임을 강조하면서 출발한다. 그렇다면 인간다운 죽음이란 무엇인가. 인간의 존엄성을 지키며 죽음을 맞이할 수 있는 인간다운, 품위있는 죽음이란 무엇인가. 이 물음은 결국 육체에만 집중되는 육체집착적 치료를 비판하고 있는 것이며 이러한 요인이 오늘날 무의미한 연명의료의 원인임을 규명한다. 그렇다면 연명의료결정법의 시행으로 인간다운 죽음은 실현될 수 있는가. 이러한 문제의식 하에 필자는 첫째, 현재 시행 중인 연명의료결정법의 주요 내용을 살펴본 후 연명의료 중단대상 환자 범위를 통한 그것의 문제점을 고찰하고자 한다. 그 과정에서 (...) 연명의료 중단대상 범위를 임종과정 환자로 제한시킴으로써 무분별한 연명의료중단의 확산을 방지하고, 또한 그것이 소극적 안락사의 간접적 허용과 구별시키기 위해서라는 점을 도출해낸다. 둘째, 그렇다면 연명의료중단 대상에 포함되지 않는 환자는 어떻게 인간다운 죽음을 실현시킬 수 있는가. 이에 대한 논의를 필자는 연명의료결정법의 또 다른 한 축인 ‘호스피스 완화의료’에서 논의하고자 한다. 셋째, 우리가 호스피스 의료를 호스피스 돌봄 또는 호스피스 활동이라고 명명하는데, 필자가 지정하는 호스피스 철학이라는 하나의 패러다임이 과연 연명의료결정법의 호스피스 완화의료에서 얼마나 유효한가를 고찰하는데 있다. 결국 연명의료결정법은 한편으로는 죽을 권리 대신 생명 종료 시점을 결정할 권리로서 죽음에 임박한 상태에서 인간으로서의 존엄과 가치를 지키기 위하여 연명치료의 거부 또는 중단을 결정할 수 있는 자기결정권의 인정임을 강조하는데 그 의미가 있다. 그리고 다른 한편으로는 우리나라 근대의료가 도외시했던 환자의 ‘주체성’에 대한 새로운 관심을 불러일으키며, 환자의 주체성이 어떻게 실현될 것인지를 중요한 과제로 촉발시켰다고 필자는 판단한다. 종래의 의료가 삶의 연장에 중점을 둔다면 연명의료결정법은 환자를 단순한 치료의 대상이 아닌 치료의 주체로, 즉 ‘치료의 대상에서 치료의 주체에로의 전환’ 이라는 패러다임 전환의 돌파구를 마련했다고 생각한다. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the situation generated by the unequal distribution of vaccines that -at the international level- has occurred in the framework of the epidemic generated by COVID-19. For this, the concepts of «act» and «word» derived from the theoretical-political theses of Hannah Arendt (1993) are used, with which it was sought to evidence the situation of neocolonialism of vaccines derived from this situation, from the philosophical deconstruction to raise the urgent consequence of neocolonialism in health, which allowed us to (...) infer how Human Rights are not the central axis of the national and state discourses or praxis of the government systems of countries with more stable and stronger economies, since the decisions and behaviors reflect the interests of the main actors of the National States that have economic support for the large-scale purchase of vaccines against COVID-19. Which in turn are the protagonists of a sociopolitical phenomenon that can be categorized as global health neocolonialism, which is presented as a phenomenon of neocolonialism that began with the confidentiality agreements signed between the States of the countries and the pharmaceutical corporations, inside or outside COVAX in the year 2020. Concluding that the massive purchase of vaccines was subject to an exclusivity character to acquire the batches, where some factors of discrimination or non-inclusion are revealed, affirming that COVAX did not comply with the purpose for what was initially created. (shrink)

One of the most influential figures in the history of Islamic thought is Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210). The identities of mushakkik, which creates problems on many subjects, especially metaphysical and theological ones, the muhaqqiq who tries to solve the problems above the sects, and the jâmî who brings many different views together in the highest concepts, have seriously affected all the thinkers after him. Therefore, in the tradition, all schools had to inherit the philosophical and scientific dynamism that he (...) created and displayed an attitude about the problems he created and the solutions he offered. The real important motive that makes Râzî so indispensable and effective is his problematic identity (mushakkik), which carries the kalām to philosophy and philosophy to kalām, and criticizes philosophy on the basis of the kalām, and the kalām on the basis of philosophy. For this reason, when we look at the works of Râzî, who has been evaluated politically and sociologically within Ash'arism throughout his life, it is clearly seen that he is a thinker who is suitable to be embraced by different schools and to be interpreted in different ways. The fact that many Ahl as-sunnah theologians emphasized the works written by Râzî with a theological-Ash'ari theme, caused his supra-sectarian identity to be overshadowed. On the other hand, it is seen that some thinkers are making an effort to know and recognize Râzî as a philosopher-theologian and muhaqqiq. This effort is clearly seen especially in scientific figures who benefited from Kamaladdin Ibn Yûnus (d. 639/1242) in some way. Afḍal al-Dīn Khūnajī (d. 646/1248), Athir al-Din al-Abharî (d. 663/1265), Najm al-Din al-Qazwinî al-Kâtibî (d. 675/1277) can be given as examples. These personalities, on the one hand, played an active role in the spread of Râzî's scientific heritage and they were effective in bringing Râzî to the fore with his supra-sectarian identity on the other. Sirāj Al-Dīn Al-Urmawî (d. 682/1283), who inherited his scientific legacy, is among the important names who established his identity as a muhaqqiq who mostly solved supra-sectarian problems. Human actions are at the forefront of the issues in which this facility has clearly emerged. Urmawî tries to revise al-Arba'în's expressions, which seem to ignore the power and influence of human beings in terms of human actions as well as criticizing Razi's arguments very seriously. In his work Lübâb, on the one hand, he summarizes al-Erba'în of Razî he seriously criticizes Razi's Ash'ari attitude towards human actions on the other. He does this largely on the axis of the arguments that Râzî himself expressed from his encyclopedic works such as al-Matâlibu'l-'âliyya mina'l-'ilmi'l-ilâhi. It is clear that this is not an ordinary situation. Because human actions are at the forefront of the issues that determine the thinkers' conception of divinity and the relationship between God and man. In this study, Râzî's attitude on this issue and Urmavi's philosophical and theological criticisms will be tried to be determined. Thus, it is clearly seen that he is trying to establish Râzî as a muhaqqiq in the axis of human actions. (shrink)

RésuméLa responsabilité individuelle de l'homme est une notion centrale en théologie musulmane. Or une justification rationnelle de notre responsabilité morale présuppose que nos actes sont d'une certaine manière sous notre contrôle. Pour les théologiens, il était donc important de formuler une théorie de l'acte humain qui tienne compte de l'autodétermination humaine. Cet article analyse les réflexions d'al-Bāqillānī au sujet de l'acte humain dans le contexte des discussions qui eurent lieu en son temps. Je récapitulerai brièvement la théorie muʿtazilite du libre (...) arbitre, théorie à laquelle s'opposa l’école ašʿarite en formulant sa propre position. Ensuite, j'esquisserai les fondements du point de vue d'Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ašʿarī qui proposa de fonder l'autodétermination humaine sur le caractère volontaire de l'acte humain. Finalement, je discuterai comment al-Bāqillānī développe sa théorie en partant des idées d'al-Ašʿarī. Sur la base des volumes préservés de la Hidāyat al-mustaršidīn d'al-Bāqillānī, j'argumenterai qu'il envisage de donner plus de cohérence à la célèbre théorie de l’ “acquisition” en soutenant deux principes: a) l'acte humain est créé par Dieu; b) il existe cependant une corrélation réelle entre l'homme et son acte “acquis”. (shrink)

The author offers, first, an account of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Aristotelian-inspired understanding of the object of a moral act and of what morally that species contributes to the act of which it is a part. Then, with special (but not sole) attention to two passages in Aquinas cited frequently by the proponents of the new natural law theory—that is, Summa theologiae 2-2.64.7 and the commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences 2.40.1.2—the author argues that a close analysis of Aquinas’s remarks on objects (...) and intentions does not support the claim that the new natural law theory is Thomistic. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.1 (Spring 2013): 79–104. (shrink)

The fifth volume of The Hackett Aquinas, a series of central philosophical treatises of Aquinas in new, state-of-the-art translations accompanied by a thorough commentary on the text.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Thomas Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Human Act by Can Laurens LöweThomas M. Osborne Jr.Can Laurens Löwe. Thomas Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Human Act. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Pp. 225. Hardback, $99.99.This book is about the way in which Thomas Aquinas understands the human act to be composed of form and matter. It provides a fresh reading of many central texts (...) from Thomas and addresses philosophical concerns that are relevant to the contemporary literature. Although Löwe is not clear about this point, Thomas does not use in this context the terms 'formal' and 'material' in the strictest sense, as when he describes the soul as the form of the body, but in different extended senses, as when he says that charity is the form of the other virtues because it gives them a new character (Summa Theologiae, II–II, q. 23, art. 8).Löwe focuses on choice, which he considers to be antecedent to the human act, and the commanded or exterior act, which he considers to be the entire human act. This focus simplifies his account, since in one and only one text—the Prima Secundae of the Summa Theologiae—does Thomas appear to give as many as twelve acts that are stages or phases of a complete human act. Thomas devotes special attention to three acts of the will concerning the end, namely simple willing, intention, and enjoyment; and three acts of the will concerning the means, namely consent, choice, and use; and two intellectual acts, namely deliberation and command. Four other possible phases or stages are mentioned in passing, such as the judgment of choice. According to the standard interpretation, a human [End Page 152] act such as almsgiving might consist of intending to help an indigent person, deliberating about whether to give food or money, making a judgment of choice about the best means of helping (such as giving money), choosing to give the money, and then commanding the will's use of certain other powers, such as the movement of the hands and feet. In his other writings, Thomas mentions only some of these stages, and he often mentions only simple willing, deliberation, and choice. Scholars disagree over the number and importance of the acts or parts of acts discussed in the Prima Secundae and how to integrate them with what Thomas says in other texts. Löwe argues that the human act is what Thomas describes as the act's execution; he claims that this act has the intellect's command for its extrinsic form, the will's use for its intrinsic form, and the commanded act for its matter.This book has three parts. Part 1 provides a general account of the author's view that choice explains the act's freedom even if it is not part of the resulting act. In part 2, Löwe gives a novel account of Thomas's claim that the judgment of the intellect gives form to the act of choice. He draws on the distinction that Thomists make (although Thomas is less clear) between the composition of terms, or the enunciative proposition, and the judgement, or judicative proposition. For instance, the statement 'carrots are orange' as an enunciative proposition might be entertained as doubtful or likely, or placed in a conditional statement. However, someone might assent to this same composition by judging that it is true. Löwe's account is confusing on this point, as he describes as "judgment" what his Thomists describe as the enunciative proposition, which is the composition of terms (38–41). Terminological difficulties aside, Löwe draws on what he sees as the related distinction between the content of a judgment and the attitude toward the judgment, using this distinction to describe the freedom of the judgment that precedes choice. The intellect composes different precepts and then assents to one of them. According to Löwe, Thomas thinks that the agent's ability to choose between different goods is reduced to the intellect's ability to assent to the content of one precept and not the content of another according to a kind of second-order... (shrink)

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008: a missed opportunity?Amel AlghraniCorrespondence to Dr Amel Alghrani, Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation, Centre for Social Ethics and Policy, School of Law, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL; [email protected] 16 September 2009 Accepted 24 September 2009 Regulating reproduction is no easy feat. In the past three decades we have witnessed a reproductive revolution and great strides have been made to alleviate the effects of infertility. Reproductive advances such as in-vitro (...) fertilisation , sex selection, reproductive cloning and embryo selection for the purpose of creating “saviour siblings” have all emerged as part of a rapid and ever-changing branch of medicine, each promising to upset the status quo and transform human reproduction.Following much activity in this area, the lengthy process of updating the legislation is now complete. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 received Royal Assent on 13 November 2008. The majority of the HFE Act 2008’s amendments will come into force in October of this year, with the exception of the provisions pertaining to parenthood, which commenced in April 2009. Welcoming Royal Assent, Professor Lisa Jardine, Chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, stated:“This is a momentous day for the HFEA and for those with fertility problems. The regulatory system that has served us so well has been renewed. Parliament has provided a clear framework for the future and a solid base on which to regulate 21st century practice within 21st century law.”1However, as scientific endeavours into developments such as artificial gametes, womb transplantation and ectogenesis continue apace, it could be argued that Jardine was perhaps overly optimistic about the achievements of the new legislation. The HFE Act 2008 is an amending statute, and as Jackson 2 notes “much of the regulatory architecture” in the 1990 legislation “remains intact”. In retaining the architecture of the 1990 legislation, and merely amending or adding certain provisions, has the government missed an ideal opportunity to consider how to equip the regulatory framework for the next phase/era of assisted reproduction?The next …. (shrink)

The Human Organ Transplantation Act came into officially force in Bangladesh on April 13, 1999, allowing organ donations from both living and brain-dead donors. The Act was amended by the Parliament on January 8, 2018, with the changes coming into effect shortly afterwards on January 28. The Act was revised to extend a living donor pool from close relatives to include certain other relatives such as grandparents, grandchildren, and first cousins. The Act was also revised to allow individuals to (...) prioritize family members in receiving their organs after their death. The aim of this paper is not to carry out an ethical analysis of the Act as a whole but only to focus on aspects relating to priority access for family members to organs. Despite Islam encouraging Muslims to be sympathetic, and to save the life of any member of humankind, saving the life of a relative through organ donation is even more highly valued. The collective and extended structure of the family impacts on the provisions of the Act that only allows Bangladeshis to legally donate their organs to save the lives of relatives and allows individuals to prioritize family members. Recent progress in the practice of organ transplantation raises a number of ethical dilemmas around the allocation of available organs in the context of organ scarcity. A key purpose of introducing incentive into the system of organ allocation is to increase the number of donations from living relatives and initiation of vital organ donations from brain-dead donors. However, allocation criteria based on a living organ donation incentive system would appear to be unethical because there is no provision in the Act with regard to financial compensation for a distant relative donor’s post-operative care in the absence of healthcare coverage. Receiving organs from a distant relative without giving financial compensation for post-operative care places them in a grave health condition and violates the biomedical principle of non-maleficence. An incentive system around brain-dead donors would appear to be ethical as the amended Act allows individuals to prioritize relatives in receiving their organs after death. This provision is intended to initiate the transplantation of vital organs from brain-dead donors as families might bear the cost of keeping the organs alive for transplantation. Regular reassessment of the impact of the Act is necessary to maximize the donation rate of transplantable organs using ethical means. (shrink)

This essay claims that a rupture between two languages permeates human rights discourse in contemporary Anglo-American legal thought. Human rights law is no exception. The one language is written in the sense that a signifying relation inscribed by institutional authors represents concepts. Theories of law have shared such a preoccupation with concepts. Legal rules, doctrines, principles, rights and duties exemplify legal concepts. One is mindful of the dominant tradition of Anglo-American conceptual jurisprudence in this regard. Words have been (...) thought to copy ready-made concepts. Acts of intellectualisation and the accompanying analytic technique have excluded a consideration of a very different sense of legal language. The second sense of a language concentrates upon unwritten acts of meaning which lack a discrete and assignable author. This essay aims to unconceal the importance of an unauthored language. Drawing from Edmund Husserl’s early writings, particularly his Logical Investigations, I shall argue that an unwritten language embodies the written language with acts of meaning. An act of meaning confers one’s experiential body into the content of a concept signified in a written language. In order to understand the importance of such pre-legal acts of meaning in human rights laws, I begin by outlining how universal human rights have been signified as universal by virtue of their content-independence. I then raise the problem of the exclusion of social-cultural phenomena as elements of human rights laws. The clue to this exclusionary character of human rights law rests in the analytic leap from an unwritten to a written legal language. The essay then addresses the effort to link legality with the social world: namely, the effort of grounding legality in a social convention. I examine how a social convention itself is conceptualized, leaving the remainder of acts of meaning. This failure of social conventions to access social-cultural phenomena encourages me to turn to acts of meaning as such acts were understood by Edmund Husserl in his earlier works. Meaning-constituting acts exist prior to intuitions and prior to social conventions. This priority exists analytically as well as phenomenologically. In order to exemplify this prior character of acts of meaning, I retrieve Antigone’s experiential knowledge in Sophocles’ Antigone. Antigone’s unwritten laws are characterized by an absence of mediating concepts. I then identify several elements of an act of meaning in an unwritten language: the experiential body as the source of the acts of meaning, praeiudicia (prejudgements), collective memories, the act character of meaning, and the act of interpretation of social behaviour. My final section raises the prospect of whether human rights can be considered universal if acts of meaning are that important in the identity of a law. (shrink)

The article examines methods of distinguishing positive and negative duties within the provisions of the European Convention of Human Rights as applied by the European Court of Human Rights. It highlights problems with tying positive duties to acts and negative duties to omissions, and sets out a supplemental delineation method when those problems lead to systematic classification errors: duties sort as positive if they have the capacity for multiple fulfilment options and negative if they only allow one fulfilment (...) option. These delineation criteria allow for a more consistent reconstruction of case law and point to a causal mechanism for alleged asymmetries in proportionality review and margins of appreciation. Lastly, there are revisionary implications for human rights scholarship. Judgments have been sorted as positive rights cases because they feature a requirement that states commit to legislative amendment, yet performative acts of amendment may be continuous with underlying negative duties. (shrink)