In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:570 BOOK REVIEWS like reasonable rule for economic life. This effort is worthy of more attention than is possible here, but let it be noted that it must inevitably suffer the same fate as any ethical calculus: someone must decide for others what is their due and what is not. How much wealth, for example, makes for a concentration [of wealth] that would be " demonstrably detrimental to some (...) people's exercise of their generic rights "? His is ultimately an entitlement or rights ethic, rather than an aitial ethic of goal-purposive fulfillment for the individual, projected outwards for a common good scenario. While his rejection of goal ethics's inability to detail principles for distribution of goods is noteworthy, it does not appear that a tightened version of generic rights theory will come closer to either of Phillips's desiderata: a justification of moral reasoning apart from any theory of nature or a calculus for its application. Desan and Phillips wish to think against the limits of the human situation. For Desan, rising above limitation is a moral task and obligation facing us each, if there is to be a common future. His call is to be World Citizen in a Polis of Nations. Phillips's vision is more concrete, a distribution of benefits to benefit all with well-being and freedom. But this mundane task is no less difficult than Desan's transcendent one. Indeed, according to Augustine, even the Divine Mind must utilize an artifice in dealing with human creation: "He loves each of us as though there were only one of us." Both ethicists have striven to show us how we might think this vision for ourselves, i.e., for each other of us. ]OIIN B. DAVIS, O.P. ' Detroit, Michigan Catholics, Anglicans, and Puritans: Seventeenth-Century Essays. By HUGH TREVOR-ROPER. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988. Pp. xiii + 317. $27.50 (hardbound). Even to list the changes and events which occurred in seventeenth century England is a difficult task: the century spans the period from the death of Queen Elizabeth to the Glorious Revolution and beyond, through the Civil War, the accession and exile (twice) of the Stuarts, the rise of science, the transformation of the theological and religious issues of the English Reformation, to name only the most obvious. To conceive a book, in the form of occasional essays, which not only addresses these changes and events but does so by establishing the connections which were present with European currents at the same time surely tempts fate, even when it does not tempt reviewers. BOOK REVIEWS 571 But Hugh Trevor-Roper is a master, both of the period under survey and of the form of the essay. With one exception, each of these essays began as a lecture or seminar paper, and the pleasantly legible style in which they are written must bear some trace of that origin. The occasional flashes of wit, mixed with rthe fairly non-technical style, make the book a joy to read and a welcome escape from the usually constipated style of scholarly prose. In his Introduction, the essayist clearly sets forth his thesis that English intellectual history does not exist apart from the currents of European intellectual history (a thesis for which Trevor-Roper has already staked a claim). That leads to what may very well be the major problem with these essays: its end is in its beginning. The list of names cited in these essays only partially coincides with the list of names in the index; the former is much longer than the latter. And while the style of the essay welcomes the reader to the period, it also throws up more names and places and events than can be explained or even annotated adequately. This occurs both on a large and on a small scale. The first essay, on "Nicholas Hill, the English Atomist" contains such a vast array of names that at times it becomes the prosopo· graphical equivalent of a telephone book. On a large scale, there is the problem with a definition of Arminianism. No definition, at least no formal definition, is attempted-and this is probably wise. But, particularly in... (shrink)

In the history of human thought the name of ARISTOTLE must be written in capital letters. Of few of the Great Thinkers of history is it so true that he was one of what William James called “the folio editions of mankind.” In speaking of him, whether in praise or dispraise, it has been found almost impossible to avoid superlatives. The later ancients ranked the disciple level with his master Plato as occupying the twin summits of philosophical attainment. Since then (...) they have divided the allegiance of the thinkers of the Western World. No doubt it is a rather wild judgment of Coleridge's that every man is born either a natural Platonist or a natural Aristotelian, but it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that no man has attained any width of knowledge or depth of reflection who is not driven to recognize, and often to express, a preference for the one over the other. (shrink)

This commentary explores biological models of analogical and associative learning in support of Illusion 1 and Illusion 4 in D. Noble’s target article. The intent is to support Noble’s theses of emergent higher level functionality from lower level stochastic dynamics and his etiological claim that “there is no privileged level of causation” through a biosemiotic lens. Upon these arguments, a case for creative agency via higher-dimensional constraints will also be made in support of Noble’s claim that organismic behavior is actively (...) directed by an agent. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to highlight ways in which institutional policymakers tend to insufficiently conceptualise their role as ethics practitioners. We use the case of blood product recall notification as a means of raising questions about the way in which, as we have observed it, discourse for those who make institutional ethics policies is constrained by routine balancing of simplified principles to the exclusion of reflexive practices—those that turn ethics reasoning back on itself. The latter allows ethics practitioners (...) with comparatively little formal training to take ownership of traditional parameters, which define their discussions and ultimately ought to make them more insightful when doing ethics. Thus, in the midst of calls for more training to increase the competency of ethics committees, we suggest that an additional problem of how these lay ethicists conceive of their roles also needs to be addressed. (shrink)

Substituted judgement is often used in the absence of advanced directives to guide decision-making when patients lack decisional capacity. We present a remarkable case of family members exercising substituted misjudgement for a 42-year-old man hospitalized with multiorgan failure on life support. Feeling that their loved one would rather die than face severe disability, they elected to withdraw life support. Although this was done, the patient remained alive and recovered enough to clearly indicate his preference for life, even with severe disability. (...) This case suggests that in instances of unusual quality-of-life judgements where the patient's wishes cannot be known with reasonable certainty, families and physicians should be very wary using substituted judgement to refuse life support. Unless there are strong considerations based on the patient's prior statements, actions and values to decline life support, it would seem ethically appropriate to continue treatment, even with substantial disability the likely outcome. (shrink)

At least since the seminal work of the (US) National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research in the 1970s, a fundamental distinction between research and practice has underwritten both conceptual work in research ethics and regulations governing research involving human subjects. Notwithstanding its undoubted historical importance, I believe the distinction is problematic because it misrepresents clinical inquiry. In this essay, I aim to clarify the character of clinical inquiry by identifying crucial contextual constraints on (...) justification constitutive of clinical science. This analysis shows that, from an epistemological point of view, clinical research and clinical practice are not sharply distinct but intimately intertwined. This result is important in its own right—an enriched understanding of the epistemology of clinical research is valuable in and of itself. But this result is also important because it has profound implications for the ethics of human subjects research. (shrink)