In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges. Although I concur that same-sex couples should have the right to marry if anyone does, I argue that civil marriage is an unjust institution. By examining the claims employed in the majority opinion, I expose the Court’s romanticized, patriarchal view of marriage. I critique four central claims: (1) that marriage is central to individual autonomy and liberty; (2) that civil marriage is uniquely valuable; (3) (...) that marriage “safeguards” children and families; and (4) that marriage is fundamental to civil society. (shrink)

What is at stake in the conversation over same-sex marriage is competing definitions of marriage. -/- One good argument for same-sex marriage depends on a definition that came to prominence after the sexual revolution. A different understanding of marriage was prominent in the nineteenth century, and this shows that Obergefell was wrongly decided, at least as far as Originalist understandings of law are concerned. -/- Accordingly, the nature, purpose, and function of marriage, and what people think of them, are important (...) for understanding the requirements of Constitutional law. -/- The teleology of marriage is a topic philosophers and theologians are well suited to study, and thus philosophy and theology have much to contribute to the study of law and to all the other disciplines interested in marriage. (shrink)

The current rise in malpractice litigation has led to concern in the research community as to the prospect of litigation against researchers. Clearly as the responsibility for the day-to-day conduct of the research falls upon the researchers they will be potentially liable should there be negligence in the conduct of the research project itself. But to what extent can the research ethics committee and its members be held liable should harm result to the research subject? How far does the prospect (...) of the threat of litigation equate with the reality of the prospect of liability? Although the NHS research governance framework suggests that primary responsibility for the conduct of the trial is with the researcher this does not mean that REC members will be immune from actions in tort where research subjects suffer harm in the conduct of a research project approved by their NHS REC. This paper focuses upon the prospect for liability in the law of tort of NHS RECs and their members. While in practice the vast majority of such claims are unlikely to be successful members of RECs may incur resultant legal costs as a consequence of involvement in proposed litigation. It is submitted that the scope of indemnity provision provided to RECs and their members should be precisely determined, otherwise there is a real prospect that the risk of malpractice litigation may deter individuals from serving on such committees. (shrink)

The paper discusses the philosophical and historical doctrine of the Russian philosopher and historian George Petrovich Fedotov. The author focuses on the analysis of imperial issues in the works of G.P. Fedotov, especially of his views on the cultural history of the Russian empire and the essence of imperial project in Russia. Fedotov reconsiders the historical experience and revolutionary catastrophe of Russia and searches for the foundations of the social and cultural processes determining the events of Russian history. Fedotov’s works (...) offer a variety of interpretations of the political and cultural phenomenon of empire. This reflects his evolution as a philosopher of history: the focus of his vision shifts from the Medieval Rus to the Empire of Peter the Great, then to the collapsed empire of Nicholas II and finally to the USSR. Fedotov’s concept of Empire evolves into a timeless cultural-philosophical phenomenon but originates from the historical description of the centralization of power in the feudal monarchy of Ivan the Terrible. The evolution of the philosophical and historical views of Fedotov is influenced by the changes of his attitude to the historical conception of Klyuchevsky. In the 1940s Fedotov considers the empire as a universal idea. The concept of empire proposed by Fedotov gives an understanding of the Russian historical development, especially the causes of the decline and fall of the Russian Empire. Fedotov associates the cause of the salvation of Russia with the study of ancient Russian culture, in which he founds a moral and political ideal of the “Republic of Saint Sophia.” The paper shows heuristic potential of Fedotov’s cultural and philosophical ideas on the vocation of spiritual elite and the creative role of personality in the process of nation-building. (shrink)

There is still some confusion over the literary evidence for the methods by which children and others learnt to write in the ancient world. There are four main sources: the analogy between the methods of thegrammatistesand the function of the laws in Plato,Protagoras326c–d, three passages in Quintilian, a passage from one of Seneca's letters and a short analogy in Maximus of Tyre.

The last half century has been characterized by a growth in the regulation of clinical research nationally and internationally. Each area of research on human subjects has been the subject of a vast academic literature and extensive public policy debate, from issues of informed consent to that of regulatory structures. Professor Bernard Dickens has provided an outstanding contribution to this debate internationally through his many innovative and incisive papers in this area. This paper provides an English lawyer’s perspective upon the (...) increasing regulation of clinical research practices and asks – does regulation equate with effective rights protection? From Nuremberg onwards, there has been concern to ensure that research practices are ethical and in accordance with legal principles. So, for example, there have been statements such as the Declaration of Helsinki, which was initially produced in 1964. In the European context in particular, notably influential statements have been the European Convention on Human Rights, which has been followed by the Council of Europe Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine and, more recently, a Draft Additional Protocol on medical research. (shrink)

This long and complicated sentence has not been correctly translated nor clearly explained by any of the editors of the Phaedo that I have been able to consult. Bekker, Stallbaum, Wohlrab, Geddes, Wagner, Archer-Hind, Williamson, Burnet, in their notes on the passage say much that is true, but all seem to fall into certain errors. None of them has given an accurate and coherent picture of the passage as a whole. In attempting to supply such a picture I have pointed (...) out what I believe to be the mistakes of these editors, and on certain points of grammar, textual criticism, and interpretation I have some new suggestions to offer. So much emphasis on one sentence is not misplaced, for this is an important sentence, the culminating point of the first section of the dialogue, and containing in brief the essence of the ethics which Plato expounds through the mouth of Socrates. It is the peroration of Socrates' Apologia pro Vita sua, introduced by the impressive words: ⋯ μακ⋯ριε ειμμ^iota;α, a form of address often used by Socrates in passages of ‘pith and moment’. (shrink)

This completes what I think one may state and defend on physical grounds concerning the foundations of Astrology and the coming year 1602. If those learned in matters of Physics think them worthy of consideration, and communicate to me their objections to them, for the sake of eliciting the truth, I shall, if God grants me the skill, reply to them in my prognostication for the following year. I urge all who make a serious study of philosophy to engage in (...) this contest. For it concerns our worship of God and the welfare of the human race. Meanwhile, I pray from the depths of my soul, through Christ our mediator, that for all and for each the coming year may be a very happy one. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Perception-Action Mutuality Obviates Mental Construction” by Martin Flament Fultot, Lin Nie & Claudia Carello. Upshot: We examine whether there are any irreducible contradictions between ecological psychology and radical enactivism. We concentrate on two points of contention between the two approaches: the relevance of neural structures in understanding perception and the use of semantically loaded concepts in theorizing about perception.

A pure significance test would check the agreement of a statistical model with the observed data even when no alternative model was available. The paper proposes the use of a modified p -value to make such a test. The model will be rejected if something surprising is observed. It is shown that the relation between this measure of surprise and the surprise indices of Weaver and Good is similar to the relationship between a p -value, a corresponding odds-ratio, and a (...) logit or log-odds statistic. The s -value is always larger than the corresponding p -value, and is not uniformly distributed. Difficulties with the whole approach are discussed. (shrink)