Derrida is typically taken to be the thinker most antithetical to Hegel, and deconstruction to be the philosophical antithesis to Hegel’s systematic rationality. While I do not dispute the accuracy of this perception, I argue in this paper that it does not offer an adequate or a complete picture. Specifically, much about Derrida and about deconstruction is more similar to Hegel than is typically realized. I argue that Derrida’s deconstruction shares a great affinity to the method of Hegel’s Phenomenology of (...) Spirit, so much so that we could identify and articulate a latent Hegelianism in Derrida’s approach. I begin with a description of Derrida’s own project, then offer something of an apologia for his work. Finally, I describe Hegel’s method of exposition [Darstellung] and compare it to deconstruction, pointing out the fundamental similarities between the two thinkers. (shrink)

Derrida is typically taken to be the thinker most antithetical to Hegel, and deconstruction to be the philosophical antithesis to Hegel’s systematic rationality. While I do not dispute the accuracy of this perception, I argue in this paper that it does not offer an adequate or a complete picture. Specifically, much about Derrida and about deconstruction is more similar to Hegel than is typically realized. I argue that Derrida’s deconstruction shares a great affinity to the method of Hegel’s Phenomenology of (...) Spirit, so much so that we could identify and articulate a latent Hegelianism in Derrida’s approach. I begin with a description of Derrida’s own project, then offer something of an apologia for his work. Finally, I describe Hegel’s method of exposition [Darstellung] and compare it to deconstruction, pointing out the fundamental similarities between the two thinkers. (shrink)

Levinas and other contemporary thinkers have claimed that the philosophy of "the other" provides a devastating critique of systematic rationality as such and of Hegel as a paradigm case thereof.The critique links an ethical moment and socio-political issues to a thorough-going critique of Hegelian metaphysics and the dialectical method. I articulate the meaning of alterity as a critique of Hegel through Levinas and Marx, and then discuss possible Hegelian responses to this criticism. I conclude that this critique of Hegel pertains (...) to the character of his final synthesis rather than to questions of difference and identity, and challenge the interpretation of Hegelian closure as the realization of eschatology. (shrink)

This paper explores a novel philosophy of ethical care in the face of burgeoning biomedical technologies. I respond to a serious challenge facing traditional bioethics with its roots in analytic philosophy. The hallmarks of these traditional approaches are reason and autonomy, founded on a belief in the liberal humanist subject. In recent years, however, there have been mounting challenges to this view of human subjectivity, emerging from poststructuralist critiques, such as Michel Foucault's, but increasingly also as a result of advances (...) in biotechnology itself. In the face of these developments, I argue that the theoretical relevance and practical application of mainstream bioethics is increasingly under strain. Traditionalists will undoubtedly resist. Together, professional philosopher-bioethicists, public health policymakers, and the global commercial healthcare industry tend to respond conservatively by shoring up the liberal humanist subject as the foundation for medical ethics and consumer decision-making, appealing to the familiar tropes of reason, autonomy, and freedom. (shrink)

The Prevolitional Condition: The subjunctive conditionals of human freedom known by God must have their truth value prior to any free decree of God, i.e., be known prevolitionally.

Each is for the other the middle term, through which each mediates itself with itself and unites with itself; and each is for itself, and for the other, an immediate being on its own account, which at the same time is such only through this mediation. They recognize themselves as mutually recognizing one another. Scholars seeking an account of recognition will be familiar with the seminal section on lordship and bondage in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. In these passages we learn (...) that the dialectic of mutual recognition is the key to actualized self-consciousness, that moment in which the “I” transcends its immanence in the life process to become a self-reflective subject, actively superseding the.. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Written in late March 2020 in the early days of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak, this essay represents a contingent reflection on the American pandemic response, mourning in anticipation of what would soon surely unfold. I argue that the State's long-standing sacrificial economies have in this moment culminated in a suicidal State. The term is Foucault's, appearing in a controversial lecture on biopolitics, Nazism, and “biological racism.” Despite Foucault's problematic treatment of racism, I suggest that some aspects of this discourse (...) might nevertheless be apropos in our context. The U.S. pandemic response is racism's suicidal State legacy writ large: an extension and retooling of historically racist infrastructures deployed in racialized domains, but in this moment also across biosocial inequities and vulnerabilities marked by differential fungibilities other than race. (shrink)

This essay reads J.M. Coetzee’s novel, Diary of a Bad Year, as an occasion to problematize contemporary bioethical paradigms. Coetzee’s rhetorical strategies are analyzed to better understand the “scene of address” within which ethical claims can be voiced. Drawing on Foucault’s Socratic understanding of ethics as the self’s relation to itself, self-relation is explored through the rhetorical figure of catachresis. The essay ultimately argues that the ethical voice emerges when the terms—terms by which I relate to myself, to others, to (...) my own body, and to the bodies of others—are themselves subject to catachrestic refiguration. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: I Introduction II One Preliminary III Adaptationist Theories IV Punishment Theories V Commitment Signaling VI Group Selection V Conclusion Notes References.

Despite Russell’s protestations to the contrary, it has become evident that Leibniz had more than a passing interest in a number of the problems plaguing seventeenth century philosophical theology. In published work, correspondence, and private notes, Leibniz spends significant energy sorting through numerous solutions to the standard problems. Not least among these was the perennial problem of how to reconcile divine foreknowledge and providence and human freedom. In this essay I discuss how Leibniz understands this problem against the background of (...) the scholastic tradition up to his own day, how he rejects these solutions, and how he constructs an alternative which he believes will be acceptable to the various scholastic partisans while resolving the difficulties with each alternative. I then discuss the lessons that can be learned about Leibniz’s own view of freedom in light of what he says about these matters. (shrink)

In this paper I claim that there are three primary dimensions to the issue of freedom in Leibniz’s work. The first, and most widely discussed, is the logical dimension. When discussing this dimension, Leibniz is concerned primarily about the relationship between freedom and modality: what does it mean for choice to be contingent? The second dimension is the theological one. When discussing this dimension, Leibniz is interested in considering such issues as the relationships between divine knowledge or providence and human (...) freedom, the nature of freedom in God, the angels, the demons, the blessed, the damned, etc., the relationship between human freedom and divine grace, and like matters. The third dimension treats freedom from the perspective of faculty psychology. In this mode, Leibniz considers how the intellect, will, and passions are related to one another in complete human acts. Questions such as: What is deliberation? What is choice? What is weakness of will?, etc. define this third dimension of the freedom discussion. In a forthcoming paper, an abstract of which appeared in the 1992 issue of this Review, I discuss the second dimension in some detail. In this paper, I take up the third. (shrink)

“A society is more than a set of entities to which the same class-name applies” . Taking this obiter dictum of Whitehead's seriously, the present paper seeks to elucidate some of the more abstract properties of a society. By “society” I understand primarily human society in the sense in which it is an object of study for social theory, though part of what is said may admit of application to societies in some wider sense. An apology should perhaps be offered (...) for the terminology introduced. The writer's only excuse is that there seemed no other way of expressing the ideas in question. (shrink)

In recent years a number of sophisticated versions of soteriological universalism have appeared in the literature. In this essay I offer some critical retlections them. In particular, I argue that universalism offers no explanation for the fact that God puts human creatures through the earthly life, and that if there is no such reason then the earthly life and the evil it contains are both gratuitous. Finally, I argue that universalists are obliged to deny that human beings have a centrally (...) important feature of human freedom. (shrink)

Despite Russell’s protestations to the contrary, it has become evident that Leibniz had more than a passing interest in a number of the problems plaguing seventeenth century philosophical theology. In published work, correspondence, and private notes, Leibniz spends significant energy sorting through numerous solutions to the standard problems. Not least among these was the perennial problem of how to reconcile divine foreknowledge and providence and human freedom. In this essay I discuss how Leibniz understands this problem against the background of (...) the scholastic tradition up to his own day, how he rejects these solutions, and how he constructs an alternative which he believes will be acceptable to the various scholastic partisans while resolving the difficulties with each alternative. I then discuss the lessons that can be learned about Leibniz’s own view of freedom in light of what he says about these matters. (shrink)

The Prevolitional Condition: The subjunctive conditionals of human freedom known by God must have their truth value prior to any free decree of God, i.e., be known prevolitionally.

The mature Leibniz frequently uses the phrase “moral necessity” in the context of discussing free choice. In this essay I provide a seventeenth century geneology of the phrase. I show that the doctrine of moral necessity was developed by scholastic philosophers who sought to retain a robust notion of freedom while purging bruteness from their systems. Two sorts of bruteness were special targets. The first is metaphysical bruteness, according to which contingent events or states of affairs occur without a sufficient (...) explanation. The second is semantic bruteness according to which a proposition can be true without a truth maker. Denying eithersort of bruteness was thought by some to raise problems for freedom. Defenders of moral necessity thought the notion solved these problems without having to invoke bruteness. (shrink)

The mature Leibniz frequently uses the phrase “moral necessity” in the context of discussing free choice. In this essay I provide a seventeenth century geneology of the phrase. I show that the doctrine of moral necessity was developed by scholastic philosophers who sought to retain a robust notion of freedom while purging bruteness from their systems. Two sorts of bruteness were special targets. The first is metaphysical bruteness, according to which contingent events or states of affairs occur without a sufficient (...) explanation. The second is semantic bruteness according to which a proposition can be true without a truth maker. Denying eithersort of bruteness was thought by some to raise problems for freedom. Defenders of moral necessity thought the notion solved these problems without having to invoke bruteness. (shrink)

In this paper I claim that there are three primary dimensions to the issue of freedom in Leibniz’s work. The first, and most widely discussed, is the logical dimension. When discussing this dimension, Leibniz is concerned primarily about the relationship between freedom and modality: what does it mean for choice to be contingent? The second dimension is the theological one. When discussing this dimension, Leibniz is interested in considering such issues as the relationships between divine knowledge or providence and human (...) freedom, the nature of freedom in God, the angels, the demons, the blessed, the damned, etc., the relationship between human freedom and divine grace, and like matters. The third dimension treats freedom from the perspective of faculty psychology. In this mode, Leibniz considers how the intellect, will, and passions are related to one another in complete human acts. Questions such as: What is deliberation? What is choice? What is weakness of will?, etc. define this third dimension of the freedom discussion. In a forthcoming paper, an abstract of which appeared in the 1992 issue of this Review, I discuss the second dimension in some detail. In this paper, I take up the third. (shrink)

In recent years a number of sophisticated versions of soteriological universalism have appeared in the literature. In this essay I offer some critical retlections them. In particular, I argue that universalism offers no explanation for the fact that God puts human creatures through the earthly life, and that if there is no such reason then the earthly life and the evil it contains are both gratuitous. Finally, I argue that universalists are obliged to deny that human beings have a centrally (...) important feature of human freedom. (shrink)

Elicitation methods are known to influence second language speech production. For teachers and language assessors, awareness of such effects is essential to accurate interpretations of testing outcomes. For speech researchers, understanding why one method gives better performance than another may yield insights into how second-language phonological knowledge is acquired, stored, and retrieved. Given these concerns, this investigation compared L2 vowel intelligibility on two elicitation tasks and determined the degree to which differences generalized across vowels, vowels in context, lexical items, and (...) individual speakers. The dependent variable was the intelligibility of Cantonese speakers' productions of English /i I u ℧/ in varying phonetic environments. In a picture-naming task, the speakers produced responses without an auditory prompt. In a second task–interrupted repetition–they heard exemplars of the same targets without pictures, and repeated each one after counting aloud to 10, a step intended to disrupt their short-term auditory store and therefore prevent simple mimicry. For target words with scores below 80% on picture naming, mean intelligibility was more than 10 points higher on interrupted repetition. However, that difference did not generalize across conditions or across speakers. Thus, although it is technically accurate to say that, on average, interrupted repetition yielded better vowel intelligibility than did picture naming, that observation requires a great deal of qualification, particularly because of individual speaker differences. The outcomes are interpreted in terms of their relevance to language assessment and phonetic learning. (shrink)

Between 1701 and 1705 Leibniz focused on the task of securing theological reunion between Lutherans and Calvinists, the two major Protestant sects at the time. Doing so, he believed, required reconciliation on two key topics, namely, the doctrine of the Eucharist, and the doctrine of election. To bring unity on the second issue, Leibniz composed a lengthy treatise based on a commentary on the Thirty-nine articles of the Church of England. This treatise stakes out a position springing from Leibniz’s own (...) views. In this essay, I examine the views Leibniz defends in this treatise. I show that Leibniz’s views are much friendlier to the Arminian perspective than to the Calvinist one. I also show that this result is surprising since Arminian views seem incompatible with views on freedom and the problem of evil standardly attributed to Leibniz. This lack of fit should compel a re-examination of these standard attributions. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: * I Introduction * II One Preliminary * III Adaptationist Theories * IV Punishment Theories * V Commitment Signaling * VI Group Selection * V Conclusion * Notes * References.

In the summer of 2009, we conceived a special issue of MediaTropes on the theme of “bioconvergence.” We sent out an initial circular to measure interest and solicited abstracts from scholars across disciplines. We received so many engaging and excellent contributions that we decided to publish two volumes of this special issue. Volume I appears here, while the publication of Volume II is anticipated in early 2012. The contributions to this volume examine, from a range of angles, the ways in (...) which living bodies, media, and technologies “converge.” The starting proposition of this special issue is that bodies are technologized and conceived increasingly in technical and biotechnological terms, while correspondingly, techniques and technologies have become increasingly “bodied.” Moreover, both tendencies are pointedly and pervasively mediatized as bodies and technologies constitute intercutting currents of spectacle and digitality in public and cultural life... (shrink)

This paper opens with first‐hand accounts of critical care medical interventions in which detainees, in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), are brought to the emergency department for treatment. This case dramatizes the extent to which the provision of ethical and acceptable nursing care is jeopardized by federal law enforcement paradigms. Drawing on the scholarship of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, this paper offers a theoretical account of the power dynamics that inform the health care of patients (...) who find themselves caught in the custodial scaffolding of a vast immigration and detention apparatus. It offers an analysis of the display of sovereign and biopolitical power over the lives (and deaths) of detainees (Foucault), as well as the ways these individuals are reduced to “bare life” under the political pretext of an emergency or “state of exception” (Agamben). Our purpose here is both theoretical and practical: to better understand the often hidden agency or impersonal “will” exercised by the immigrant detention system, but also to equip clinicians in these and cognate facilities (e.g., prisons) with the critical tools by which they might better navigate incommensurable paradigms (i.e., care vs. custody) in order to deliver the best care while upholding their ethical duties as a care provider. This is all the more pressing because hospitals are not sanctuaries and given the incursion of federal law enforcement agents, nurses may find themselves conscripted as de facto agents of the state. (shrink)

Indirect speech acts—responding “I forgot to wear my watch today” to someone who asked for the time—are ubiquitous in daily conversation, but are understudied in current neurobiological models of language. To comprehend an indirect speech act like this one, listeners must not only decode the lexical-semantic content of the utterance, but also make a pragmatic, bridging inference. This inference allows listeners to derive the speaker’s true, intended meaning—in the above dialog, for example, that the speaker cannot provide the time. In (...) the present work, we address this major gap by asking non-aphasic patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia and brain-damaged controls with amnestic mild cognitive impairment to judge simple question-answer dialogs of the form: “Do you want some cake for dessert?” “I’m on a very strict diet right now,” and relate the results to structural and diffusion MRI. Accuracy and reaction time results demonstrate that subjects with bvFTD, but not MCI, are selectively impaired in indirect relative to direct speech act comprehension, due in part to their social and executive limitations, and performance is related to caregivers’ judgment of communication efficacy. MRI imaging associates the observed impairment in bvFTD to cortical thinning not only in traditional language-associated regions, but also in fronto-parietal regions implicated in social and executive cerebral networks. Finally, diffusion tensor imaging analyses implicate white matter tracts in both dorsal and ventral projection streams, including superior longitudinal fasciculus, frontal aslant, and uncinate fasciculus. These results have strong implications for updated neurobiological models of language, and emphasize a core, language-mediated social disorder in patients with bvFTD. (shrink)

Charles Murray describes himself as a libertarian, most notably in his short book, What it Means to be a Libertarian. He might more accurately have described himself as having libertarian tendencies. My reading of Simple Justice is that the views it espouses are far more traditionalist than libertarian. Neither traditionalist state-retribution nor modernist state-leniency is libertarian. Nor does either provide as just or efficient a response to crime as does libertarian restitution, including restitutive retribution. Here, I shall respond directly (...) only to Murray's views, rather than also deal with state-leniency. This is because I accept Murray's thesis, without endorsing his specific arguments for it, that state-leniency is disastrous as a response to crimes against persons and their justly acquired property. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:JOHN COURTNEY MURRAY'S PROBLEMATIC INTERPRETATIONS OF LEO XIII AND THE AMERICAN FOUNDERS MICHAEL J. SCHUCK Loyola University Chicago, Illinois "Useful falsehoods are dangerous things, often costing something down the road." Garry Wills IN THE PROLOGUE to his provocative study of ithe Declaration of Independence, Garry Wills claims Abraham Lincoh1 distorted Thomas Je:fferson's document for po1it~caJ purposes. Amid the tumult of civil war, L,incoln encouraged Amer1cans to "dedicate" themsely;es (...) to the "proposition that all men are created equal," because on this basis their "fathe11s" had originalJy "conceiV'ed" the nation "four scoil.'e and seven years" earlier. In fact, says Wins, the signers employed the word ' equal~ty ' not to denote,an a:titribute of indiviJdual persons but rather ito descnibe the severed colonies' political standing vis-a-vis the motiheT country. Nor did the Dedar:ation 1conceive a nation: "if anything, July 4, 1776, produced twieily;e new nations." 1 Lincoln's 1oreatiy;e use of the Dedaration of Independence at Gettysburg bore both benefits and costs. It emboldened Union cresolve dur:ing the war and inspired a new nation in the 1aftermath. Yet it aJ.so, thinks W,i. (shrink)

Chapter 5 is an essay on the methodology of equilibrium theory. In the course of examining recent controversies concerning lawlike claims and "assumptions" in economic theory, I reach a position similar to J. S. Mill's. Neo-classical economics is what Mill would call "a separate science." It follows a deductive method, since its basic laws supported by everyday experience. In its general equilibrium formulation, equilibrium theory possesses, however, no explanatory worth and very little explanatory importance, since its idealizations are not legitimate. (...) General equilibrium theory ought fundamentally to be regarded as an explanation of how economic equilibrium is possible. ;In conclusion I argue that Sraffa's contribution is a legitimate form of economic theorizing. Those methodological views, like Lionel Robbins', which would proscribe the sort of piecemeal theorizing Sraffa exemplifies, are, as methodological strictures, unjustified. In fact they involve an ideological distortion. Given the weaknesses in general equilibrium theory identified in Chapters 3 and 5, one has good reason to be eclectic. The Austrian theory, despite the Cambridge criticisms, may be useful in some investigations. A much more segmented economics built around Sraffa's work may have a great deal to teach us. Theories of capital, interest and exchange value currently are underdeveloped, unsupported, and subject to ideological influence. ;In Chapter 3 one special formulation of intertemporal general equilibrium theory is examined. I argue that general equilibrium theory may be taken as a theory of the rate of interest to which the Cambridge criticisms do not apply. Puzzles remain, however, concerning both the apparently lawlike claims and the unrealistic stipulations concerning background conditions that general equilibrium theory makes. ;In Chapter 4 Sraffa's system in The Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities is presented and tentatively assessed. I argue that it is consistent with equilibrium theory, but may be combined with other claims that are not consistent with equilibrium theory. What is puzzling but, I argue, methodologically legitimate in Sraffa's work is that he takes as givens factors like the composition of output, that are themselves subject to further economic analysis. Sraffa's work, when properly understood, can prove valuable to Marxian economists. ;Chapter 1 establishes a contrast between physical cost and marginal utility theories of exchange value and examines why issues concerning capital and interest are theoretically central to both theories. I point out that physical cost theories of value are not tenable. ;Chapter 2 is concerned with simplified aggregate capital theories, especially Wicksell's Austrian theory of capital, and with the Cambridge criticisms of such theories. The Cambridge criticisms show, I conclude, that aggregative capital theories make unwarranted economic claims. ;This dissertation examines from both an economic and a philosophical perspective controversies concerning the theory of capital and interest and the relationship of capital and interest to exchange value. The fundamentals of the neo-classical and neo-Ricardian approaches to economic theory are made explicit and compared. The neo-Ricardian approach is partially defended. (shrink)

Charles Murray describes himself as a libertarian, most notably in his short book, What it Means to be a Libertarian. He might more accurately have described himself as having libertarian tendencies. My reading of Simple Justice is that the views it espouses are far more traditionalist than libertarian. Neither traditionalist state-retribution nor modernist state-leniency is libertarian. Nor does either provide as just or efficient a response to crime as does libertarian restitution, including restitutive retribution. Here, I shall respond directly (...) only to Murray's views, rather than also deal with state-leniency. This is because I accept Murray's thesis, without endorsing his specific arguments for it, that state-leniency is disastrous as a response to crimes against persons and their justly acquired property. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Beyond Ratzinger's Republic:Communio's Postliberal TurnSam Zeno Conedera S.J. and Vincent L. Strand S.J.Is the political future of the West a postliberal one? For the past decade, numerous prominent thinkers in America and Europe have been debating this question. Matters that not long ago were merely of historical interest, such as Pope Gelasius I's understanding of the relation between sacral authority and royal power, Thomas Aquinas's thought on monarchy and (...) Robert Bellarmine's theory of the pope's indirect authority in temporal matters are now increasingly studied for their potential answers to contemporary political questions. This development, which would have been nearly unimaginable just a decade earlier, unsurprisingly has been led by Catholics. We say "unsurprisingly" in view of the long pre-modern tradition of Catholic political thought, as well as the Church's long struggle against liberalism during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some of the current postliberal writers explicitly connect themselves to both of these aspects by using the term "integralist" to describe their position.1 [End Page 889]This "new integralism" represents a radical departure from the mainstream of Catholic political discourse of the last half century, which has largely sought rapprochement with Western liberalism. A group of writers, led by John Courtney Murray, George Weigel, Michael Novak, and Robert George, have held that the American constitutional order is rooted in the natural law tradition, and therefore is basically friendly to Catholic political thought. The Church's role in American life, they say, is upholding the natural law as a public moral philosophy, while embracing the non-establishment clause of the First Amendment as a matter of principle, in accordance with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. This "Whig Thomism," which for decades represented the predominant outlook of conservative American Catholics, must now face the challenge of a different sort of Thomism represented by the integralists.2While the engagement between Whig Thomists and integralists has received most of the attention from scholars and journalists alike, another postliberal option has emerged in recent years. Its source is a group of Catholic thinkers associated with the Communio theological movement. Their political vision, which has no single name or label, has a complex and subtle relationship with the thought of earlier Communio writers, most of whom shared the Whig Thomist desire for reconciliation with Western liberalism. [End Page 890] The appearance of a Communio postliberalism therefore represents a significant development within this intellectual tradition. The most important representative of the earlier Communio perspective on political questions is Joseph Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI, who has recently been lauded as the "most important Catholic thinker of the twentieth century" on matters at the intersection of theology and politics.3In an article titled "Ratzinger's Republic" that appeared in these pages in 2020, we identified a significant tension in his thought about the Church's contribution to political life.4 Exploring Ratzinger's writings on natural law, we demonstrated that two currents are present. In accord with his fundamental theological commitments about nature and grace and about faith and reason, Ratzinger often questioned the effectiveness of arguments from natural law. He claimed that, since reason is historically conditioned, and therefore in the current order marked by sin, reason needs grace and faith to function properly. Yet, on other occasions, Ratzinger strongly endorsed arguments from natural law, highlighting its role as the foundation of a just democratic political order. We traced this ambivalence about natural law back to a dilemma at the heart of Ratzinger's political thought. On the one hand, in accord with his thinking about the relations of nature and grace and faith and reason, Ratzinger argued that the state needs the Church to supply moral values that the state cannot furnish on its own. On the other hand, he believed it belongs to the very nature of the Church to be separate from the state, and he endorsed nonconfessional, religiously pluralistic states.5 In light of these two commitments, Ratzinger argued that the contribution Christians are to make to the state is to supply moral values that were discerned under the influence of grace and divine revelation but... (shrink)

In this book Alan Haworth tends to sneer at libertarians. However, there are, I believe, a few sound criticisms. I have always held similar opinions of Murray Rothbard‟s and Friedrich Hayek‟s definitions of liberty and coercion, Robert Nozick‟s account of natural rights, and Hayek‟s spontaneous-order arguments. I urge believers of these positions to read Haworth. But I don‟t personally know many libertarians who believe them (or who regard Hayek as a libertarian).

Last year in June, British doctors went on strike for the first time since 1975. Amidst a global economic downturn and with many health systems struggling with reduced finances, around the world the issue of public health workers going on strike is a very real one. Almost all doctors will agree that we should always follow the law, but often the law is unclear or does not cover a particular case. Here we must appeal to ethical discussion. The General Medical (...) Council, in its key guidance document for practising doctors, Good Medical Practice, claims that ‘Good doctors make the care of their patients their first concern’. Is this true? And if so, how is this relevant to the issue of striking? One year on since the events, we carefully reflect and argue whether it was right for doctors to pursue strike action, and call for greater discussion of ethical issues such as the recent strikes, particularly among younger members of the profession. (shrink)

What is the relationship between detailed critical analysis and the background assumptions made by a given theory of film spectatorship? In this article, I approach this question by looking at Vittorio Gallese and Michele Guerra's The Empathic Screen in the light of the method of triangulation—the coordination and integration of phenomenological, psychological, and neuroscientific evidence, as set out in my Film, Art, and the Third Culture. In particular, I examine Gallese and Guerra's arguments concerning the role of camera movement in (...) prompting immersive, embodied simulation, as well as critiques of these arguments from David Bordwell and Malcolm Turvey. I focus on the special, irreducible role of critical analysis in these arguments. Detailed analysis of film form and style plays an essential role, I argue, in demonstrating the plausibility (or otherwise) of the thesis advanced by Gallese and Guerra. Such analysis is where the rubber of theoretical assumptions meets the road of the material work. (shrink)

In his six 1983 lectures published under the title, Fearless Speech (2001), Michel Foucault developed the theme of free speech and its relation to frankness, truth-telling, criticism, and duty. Derived from the ancient Greek word parrhesia, Foucault's analysis of free speech is relevant to the mentoring of medical students. This is especially true given the educational and social need to transform future physicians into able citizens who practice a fearless freedom of expression on behalf of their patients, the public, the (...) medical profession, and themselves in the public and political arena. In this paper, we argue that Foucault's understanding of free speech, or parrhesia, should be read as an ethical response to the American Medical Association's recent educational effort, Initiative to Transform Medical Education (ITME): Recommendations for change in the system of medical education (2007). In this document, the American Medical Association identifies gaps in medical education, emphasizing the need to enhance health system safety and quality, to improve education in training institutions, and to address the inadequacy of physician preparedness in new content areas. These gaps, and their relationship to the ITME goal of promoting excellence in patient care by implementing reform in the US system of medical education, call for a serious consideration and use of Foucault's parrhesia in the way that medical students are trained and mentored. (shrink)

Bauer, Taub, and Parsi's review of an international sample of standards on informed consent, confidentiality, commercialization, and quality of research in tissue banking reveals that no clear national or international consensus exists for these issues. The authors' response to the lack of uniformity in the meaning, scope, and ethical significance of the policies they examined is to call for the creation of uniform ethical guidelines. This raises questions about whether harmonization should consist of voluntary international standards or international regulations that (...) include an official oversight mechanism and sanctions for noncompliance, and about who should participate in the harmonization process. Moreover, the normative assumptions and political dynamics that shape global policymaking need to be addressed. This commentary explores the policy implications and normative questions raised by the idea of international ethical guidelines for the use of biotechnologies and biotechnological resources such as stored samples of human tissue. (shrink)