Woodward's long awaited book is an attempt to construct a comprehensive account of causation explanation that applies to a wide variety of causal and explanatory claims in different areas of science and everyday life. The book engages some of the relevant literature from other disciplines, as Woodward weaves together examples, counterexamples, criticisms, defenses, objections, and replies into a convincing defense of the core of his theory, which is that we can analyze causation by appeal to the notion of manipulation.

If theism is true, then there exists a being to which we appropriately refer with the term ‘God’. This point is analytic. Any object to which we appropriately refer with the term ‘God’ bears certain properties – e.g. omniscience, omnipotence and moral perfection. While the analyticity of this point may be a matter of debate, I find no problem granting its necessary truth , at least for the purposes of this paper. There are properties essential to the appropriate wearing of (...) the title ‘God’. Does it follow from these claims that the object to which we appropriately apply the term ‘God’ bears the properties in question – omniscience, omnipotence, etc. – essentially? Is God essentially God? Or is it possible that the being to whom we refer with ‘God’ exist but not be God? Many would assume that the answers to these questions are obvious – that God is God essentially, or not at all. However, I wish to argue that there may be properties essential to Godhood, but not essential to the being that is God. (shrink)

If the contemporary rebirth of the ontological argument had its conception in Norman Malcolm's discovery of a second Anselmian argument it had its full-term delivery as a healthy philosophical progeny with Alvin Plantinga's sophisticated modal version presented in the tenth chapter of The Nature of Necessity. This latter argument has been the centre of a huge body of literature over the last fifteen years, and deservedly so. One is impressed that this version of Anselm's jewel is valid and sound if (...) any is. (shrink)

The Ascent of Man develops a comprehensive theory of human nature. James F. Harris sees human nature as an emergent property that supervenes a cluster of properties. Despite significant overlap between individuals that have human nature and those that are biologically human, the concept of human nature developed in this book is different. Whether biologically human or not, an individual may be said to possess human nature. This theory of human nature is called the"cluster theory." Harris takes as his (...) point of departurePlato's comment that in learning what a thing is we should look to the ways in which it acts upon or is acted upon by other things. He commits to a methodological naturalism and draws upon current views from the social and biological sciences. The cluster theory he develops represents one of the very few completely novel theories of human nature developed in the post-Darwin era. It will prove most useful in dealing with philosophical questions involving such contemporary issues as cloning, cybernetics, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life. The fundamental conceptual issue is how plastic and elastic is the nature of human nature. Just how different might we imagine human beings to be and still be human in the sense that they still possess whatever it is that accounts for a unique nature? The theory of human nature developed in this book is a descriptive, dynamic, bottom-up, non-essentialist, naturalist theory. Harris is well versed in classical philosophy and contemporary behavioral science. He writes in a graceful, open-ended way that both educates and illuminates renewed interest in what it means to be human. (shrink)

Public health ethics, like the field of public health it addresses, traditionally has focused more on practice and particular cases than on theory, with the result that some concepts, methods, and boundaries remain largely undefined. This paper attempts to provide a rough conceptual map of the terrain of public health ethics. We begin by briefly defining public health and identifying general features of the field that are particularly relevant for a discussion of public health ethics.Public health is primarily concerned with (...) the health of the entire population, rather than the health of individuals. Its features include an emphasis on the promotion of health and the prevention of disease and disability; the collection and use of epidemiological data, population surveillance, and other forms of empirical quantitative assessment; a recognition of the multidimensional nature of the determinants of health; and a focus on the complex interactions of many factors—biological, behavioral, social, and environmental—in developing effective interventions. (shrink)

In the years around 1900 one of the most significant practical consequences of new styles of bacteriological thought and practice was the development of preventive vaccines and therapeutic sera. Historical scholarship has highlighted how approaches rooted in the laboratory methods of Robert Koch, Louis Pasteur and their collaborators were transformed in local contexts and applied in diverse ways to enable more effective disease identification, prevention and treatment. Amongst these, the anti-anthrax serum developed by the Italian physician Achille Sclavo (1861–1930) has (...) received little to no attention from historians. This article positions Sclavo's serum as a neglected but significant presence in British microbiology, which achieved widespread uptake amidst a wave of optimism, despite prolonged uncertainty about its mechanism of action and dosage. After being introduced to Britain in 1904 by the enterprising first medical inspector of factories Thomas Morison Legge, within a matter of months the serum became regarded by medical practitioners as an effective treatment of cutaneous anthrax, though access to ‘fresh’ serum and the necessary speedy diagnosis remained problematic. Like the disease anthrax itself, discussion of ‘Sclavo's serum’ was out of all proportion to the relatively low number of cases, reflecting a deep-seated fascination with the wider possibilities afforded by effective serum therapy. (shrink)

This essay explores some of the conceptual and moral issues raised by illegal actions in health care. The author first identifies several types of illegal action, concentrating on civil disobedience, conscientious objection or refusal, and evasive noncompliance. Then he sketches a framework for the moral justification of these types of illegal action. Finally, he applies the conceptual and normative frameworks to several major cases of illegal action in health care, such as "mercy killing" and some decisions not to treat incompetent (...) patients. Keywords: illegal actions, mercy killing, non-treatment of incompetent patients, civil disobedience, conscientious objection, evasive non-compliance, moral justification and disobedience, dissent in health care CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This paper provides a restatement and defense of the data/ phenomena distinction introduced by Jim Bogen and me several decades ago (e.g., Bogen and Woodward, The Philosophical Review, 303–352, 1988). Additional motivation for the distinction is introduced, ideas surrounding the distinction are clarified, and an attempt is made to respond to several criticisms.

This book explores, in rich and rigorous ways, the possibilities and limitations of “thick” autonomy in light of contemporary debates in philosophy, ethics, and bioethics. Many standard ethical theories and practices, particularly in domains such as biomedical ethics, incorporate minimal, formal, procedural concepts of personal autonomy and autonomous decisions and actions. Over the last three decades, concerns about the problems and limitations of these “thin” concepts have led to the formulation of “thick” concepts that highlight the mental, corporeal, biographical and (...) social conditions of what it means to be a human person and that enrich concepts of autonomy, with direct implications for the ethical requirement to respect autonomy. The chapters in this book offer a wide range of perspectives on both the elements of and the relations between “thin” and “thick” concepts of autonomy as well as their relative roles and importance in ethics and bioethics. This book offers valuable and illuminating examinations of autonomy and respect for autonomy, relevant for audiences in philosophy, ethics, and bioethics. (shrink)

This paper examines the dilemma of heavenly freedom. If there is freedom in heaven, then it seems that there is the possibility of evil in heaven, which violates standard intuitions. If there is not, then heaven is lacking a good significant enough that it would justify God in creating free beings, despite the evil they might cause. But then how can God be justified in omitting such a good from heaven? To resolve this dilemma, I present the Proximate Conception of (...) freedom, which holds that actions may be free though determined, but only if they have in their causal history some undetermined free actions by the same agent. I show how this conception resolves the dilemma, defend it against objections, and comment on its implications. (shrink)

After briefly sketching common-morality principlism, as presented in Principles of Biomedical Ethics, this paper responds to two recent sets of challenges to this framework. The first challenge claims that medical ethics is autonomous and unique and thus not a form of, or justified or guided by, a common morality or by any external morality or moral theory. The second challenge denies that there is a common morality and insists that futile efforts to develop common-morality approaches to bioethics limit diversity and (...) prevent needed moral change. This paper argues that these two critiques fundamentally fail because they significantly misunderstand their target and because their proposed alternatives have major deficiencies and encounter insurmountable problems. (shrink)

Journal of Religious Ethics, Volume 50, Issue 1, Page 7-19, March 2022.

Focusing mainly on respect for autonomy, particularly autonomous choices and actions in bioethical decisions, I examine several complexities of enacting this respect through the case of a fourteen-year-old boy who died after being allowed to refuse a necessary blood transfusion on religious grounds. I argue that thicker concepts of autonomy, closely connected with relational autonomy, direct our attention to aspects of respect for autonomy that are often neglected or underappreciated in much bioethical theory and practice. In particular, they illuminate the (...) interpretive complexity of respecting autonomous choices by focusing attention on the relational context of individuals’ decisions, on respect for individuals’ social-cultural beliefs and values, and on the temporality of selves, as expressed in their past consent or future consent as well as in—and sometimes in contradiction to—their present consent or dissent. However, it is important not to convert the illuminating and valuable insights from theories of relational autonomy into necessary conditions of autonomous choices and actions and hence of respect for autonomy. (shrink)

"A very good book indeed: there is scarcely an issue anyone has thought to raise about the topic which Childress fails to treat with sensitivity and good judgement....Future discussions of paternalism in health care will have to come to terms with the contentions of this book, which must be reckoned the best existing treatment of its subject."--Ethics. "A clear, scholarly and balanced analysis....This is a book I can recommend to physicians, ethicists, students of both fields, and to those most affected--the (...) patients themselves."--Edmund D. Pellegrino, John Carroll Professor of Medicine and Medical Humanities, Georgetown University Medical Center. (shrink)

The effectiveness of case-based learning in ethics education varies widely regarding how cases are presented. Case process instruction may impact case-based ethics education to promote sensemaking processes, ethical sensemaking strategy use, and ethical decision making (EDM) quality. This study examined two teaching techniques, notes and review, and participants completed note-taking and review activities examining a case-based scenario during an ethics education course. Results suggest that providing case notes in outline form improves sensemaking processes, strategy use, and EDM quality. In addition, (...) combining processes of provided notes and passive review results in incremental, additive performance via certain ethical sensemaking strategies and EDM quality. (shrink)

This paper explores some issues concerning the nature and structure of causal explanation in psychiatry and psychology from the point of view of the “interventionist” theory defended in my book, Making Things Happen. Among the issues is explored is the extent to which candidate causal explanations involving “upper level” or relatively coarse-grained or macroscopic variables such as mental/psychological states (e.g. highly self critical beliefs or low self esteem) or environmental factors (e.g. parental abuse) compete with explanations that instead appeal to (...) underlying, “lower level” or more fine gained neural, genetic, or biochemical mechanisms. (shrink)

Argues that Wittgenstein's early ethical notion of agreement with the world pivoted to become his later therapeutic notion of agreement with living forms, which satisfies the conditions necessary for a full therapeutic philosophy.

This paper argues that Wittgenstein, both early and late, rejects the idea that the logically simpler and more fundamental case is that of "the mere sign" and that what a meaningful symbol is can be explained through the elaboration of an appropriately supplemented conception of the sign: the sign plus something. Rather the sign, in the logically fundamental case of its mode of occurrence, is an internal aspect of the symbol. The Tractatus puts this point as follows: “The sign is (...) that in the symbol which is perceptible by the senses.” Conversely, this means that it is essential to a symbol – to what a symbol is – that it have an essentially perceptible aspect. For Wittgenstein there is no privileged direction of explanatory priority between symbol and sign here: without signs there are no symbols and without some sort of relation to symbols there are no signs. (shrink)

The absence of ethics at American universities -- Ethics -- How the literature on the university is moving slowly but surely toward university ethics -- A first case for university ethics: the adjunct faculty -- The cultural landscape of the university without ethics -- Cheating -- Undergraduates behaving badly -- Gender -- Diversity and race -- Commodification -- A conclusion : class, athletics, and other university matters.

This is the first book to explore the relationship between Martin Heidegger's work and modern anthropology. Heidegger attracts much scholarly interest among social scientists, but few have explored his ideas in relation to current anthropological debates. The discipline's modernist foundations, the nature of cultural constructionism and of art ñ even what an anthropology of art must include ñ are all informed and illuminated by Heidegger's work. The author argues that many contemporary anthropologists, in their concern to return subjectivity and 'voice' (...) to their interlocutors, neglect to recognize that language and other representational practices conceal the world and human subjectivity as much as reveal it. The author also suggests that Heidegger's critique of western technology provides the basis for a return to anthropology's sociological foundations. Emerging from over ten years of original research, and drawing on a rich knowledge of Australian and Melanesian ethnography, this book reassesses the underlying framework of modern and, particularly, visual anthropology. Innovative and provocative, it will be of interest to all anthropologists, philosophers and students of art and culture. (shrink)

The several articles in this special issue on organ donation after circulatory determination of death or, as it is often put, donation after cardiac death, draw lessons from different kinds of experience in order to guide efforts in the U.S. to develop or refine policies for DCD. One lesson comes from a major and, by many measures, successful experimental DCD program in Washington, D.C. in the 1990s. Another lesson comes from European countries that have adopted presumed-consent legislation, a form of (...) “opt out” that facilitates DCD as well as donation after neurological determination of death. Another lesson, from the perspective of critical care medicine in Canada, attends to the implications of viewing a dying patient, undergoing resuscitative procedures, as a potential organ donor. A final lesson sketches implications of legislation and court cases in the U.S., often involving DND, for initiating temporary organ preservation in DCD programs before consent has been obtained for organ donation. Some of these lessons are optimistic about the prospects for DCD, especially if certain steps are taken, while others are more cautious, particularly because of the costs and risks involved in DCD. (shrink)

Discussions of genetic enhancements often imply deep suspicions about human desires to manipulate or enhance the course of our future. These unspoken assumptions about the arrogance of the quest for perfection are at odds with the normally hopeful resonancy we find in contemporary theology. The author argues that these fears, suspicions and accusations are misplaced. The problem lies not with the question of whether we should pursue perfection, but rather what perfection we are pursuing. The author argues that perfection, properly (...) understood, has an enormously positive function in the Roman Catholic tradition. The author examines three sources: the Scriptures, the scholastic tradition, and ascetical theology. He examines contemporary criticisms of perfectionism and suggests that an adequate virtue theory keeps us from engaging perfectionism as such. The author then shows how a positive, responsible view of perfection is an asset to our discussion on enhancement technology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Catholic Postliberalism in the Ruins of "the Catholic Moment"James F. KeatingA historically conversant reader interested in the current state of discourse regarding Catholicism and American politics will find a good amount of familiar discord. He will discover, for example, that the life issues continue to bedevil. Can a Catholic vote in good conscience for an abortion-rights candidate over a pro-life competitor if that candidate is more supportive of (...) other policies in line with Catholic Social Teaching? This issue has, of course, been with the American Church for some time now, even if it has taken on renewed urgency given the coincidence of the overturning of Roe v. Wade with the presidency of Joseph Biden, the second Roman Catholic to hold that office and a recent convert to pro-choice stridency. The action of the Supreme Court and the battles within the various states will ensure that abortion remains at the political heart of American Catholicism for years to come. One can say something similar about other issues, such as immigration, gun control, and economic justice. None of this will be found to be particularly surprising. The same cannot be said, however, of the return of a more fundamental question, one thought to have been settled since the mid-1960s. That question is whether Roman Catholicism and American liberal democracy are incompatible to the extent that Catholics ought to seek, if possible, another constitutional arrangement, one more friendly to the Catholic cause.Our reader would be familiar with the standard narrative that, while the existence of a medieval Church in a modern polity that upholds religious freedom had been a matter of concern since the dawn of the Republic, it [End Page 991] became serious only in the first half of the twentieth century as the number of Catholics and their influence grew. Until that time, American bishops, such as Archbishop John Ireland (1815–1918), made a special point of speaking publicly on the benefits of American freedom for the Church, just as they made clear that Catholics could be as patriotic as any other citizen. If there were tensions, they came primarily from anti-Catholic bigotry and governmental overreach. Things changed, however, when the point at issue was no longer primarily a religious one of Catholic believers infecting their Protestant neighbors with erroneous doctrine, but rather the threat so many Catholics posed to the fate of American freedom itself. In a postwar America concerned with the spread of Soviet communism, Paul Blanshard found a ready audience for his scholarly anti-Catholic diatribes, American Freedom and Catholic Power (1949) and Communism, Democracy, and Catholic Power (1951).1 Without much difficultly, he pointed to various statements of Gregory XVI and Pius IX condemning the separation of Church and state, the freedom of religious conscience, and democracy as the best governmental form. To top things off, he had Leo XIII's Testem Benevolentiae, an 1899 letter to the Cardinal Archbishop James Gibbons of Baltimore, warning him and his fellow bishops not to speak of the constitutional arrangement of the United States as a political ideal. While Leo had positive things to say about the American system, his admonition followed the traditional line: while constitutional protections of religious freedom are necessary when Catholics are in the minority, the ideal situation is a state that officially confesses and supports the Catholic religion. Of more recent vintage, Blanshard could quote the response of America's best-known Catholic theologian, Monsignor John A. Ryan, to the question of whether non-Catholics would be permitted to practice their religion in this ideal state:If these are carried on within the family, or in such inconspicuous manner as to be an occasion neither of scandal nor of perversion to the faithful, they may be properly tolerated by the State,... Quite distinct from the performance of false religious worship and preaching to the members of the erring sects, is the propagation of the false doctrine among Catholics. This could become a source of injury, a positive menace, to the religious welfare of true believers. Against such an evil they have a right of protection by the Catholic State... If there is only one true religion, and... (shrink)

"Public Bioethics collects the most influential essays and articles of James F. Childress, a leading figure in the field of contemporary bioethics. These essays, including new, previously unpublished material, cohere around the idea of "public bioethics," which involves analyzing and assessing public policies in biomedicine, health care, and public health, often through public deliberative bodies. The volume is divided into four sections. The first concentrates on the principle of respect for autonomy and paternalistic policies and practices. The second explores (...) the tension among bioethics, public policy, and religious convictions. It pays particular attention to the role of religious convictions in the formation of public policies and to the basis and limits of exemptions of health care providers who conscientiously oppose providing certain legal and patient-sought services. The third section looks at practices and policies related to organ transplantation. Childress focuses particularly on determining death, obtaining first-person consent for deceased organ donation, and allocating donated organs effectively and fairly. The book's fourth and final section maps the broad terrain of public health ethics, proposes a triage framework for the use of resources in public health crises, addresses public health interventions that potentially infringe civil liberties, and sheds light on John Stuart Mill's misunderstood legacy for public health ethics."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Moral Wisdom introduces moral theory through a Catholic lens. Connecting the Catholic tradition to the realities of modern life, the third edition has been revised throughout to include new examples, the teachings of Pope Francis, new scholarship on the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Jesus, and a new chapter on applying lessons to life.

Social trust is the basic resource for our institutions and is notably maintained by leaders who have what I call a vulnerable style and a vigilant capacity to recognize ethical challenges on the horizon. The essay follows five steps: a meditation on social trust, an introduction to the notion of style, and a proposal for a vulnerable style so as to become collectively capacious for recognition. Then it turns to the two institutions under examination at the 2022 annual meeting of (...) the Society of Christian Ethics (SCE): the church and the academy. The essay examines both the church on racial justice through exemplars of vulnerable style and the academy on needed recognition of the precarity of our community colleges. So as to advance an interest in diversifying our styles of communicating within the SCE, the essay provides a meditation, an academic account, an academic proposal, a narrative, and a case. (shrink)

Background -- The moral manualists -- Initiating reform : Odon Lottin -- Retrieving Scripture and charity : Fritz Tillman and Gérard Gilleman -- Synthesis : Bernard Häring -- The neo-manualists -- New foundations for moral reasoning, 1970-89 -- New foundations for a theological anthropology, 1980-2000 -- Toward a global discourse on suffering and solidarity -- Afterword: The encyclicals of Pope Benedict XVI.

The aim of this paper is to expand upon the conclusions reached by Orr and Genesen in their 1997 article , Requests for ‘inappropriate’ treatment based on religious beliefs.1 Assuming, with Orr and Genesen, that claims made in the name of religion are not absolute, I will propose some principles for determining when claims based on religious beliefs or cultural sensibilities “trump” other considerations and when they do not.

I, for one, am grateful to Peter Ubel, Karen Scherr, and Angela Fagerlin (2017) for their important and illuminating reflections on medical decision making, particularly in the context of preferenc...

Most foundational texts on theological ethics address the person or the society; the point of departure determines, inevitably, fairly different trajectories. By starting with the experience of grief, this book posits the human as ineluctably social: grief is an epiphany that reveals how the human is inseparable from the collective. Indeed, grief inevitably summons us to grieve socially. Nothing discloses the human more rawly than grief that "it is not good for the human to be alone." Keenan then develops an (...) ethics of vulnerability, following Judith Butler, understanding it not primarily as a compromised state of being but rather as that which establishes the human as capacious for recognizing and responding to others. Mutual recognition, a theme that can be found from Georg Hegel and Sigmund Freud to Axel Honneth, Nancy Frasier and Jessica Benjamin, emerges as the first moral act of the vulnerable human. In light of vulnerability and recognition, Keenan shows how we can now understand conscience as guiding the activity of one who has first vulnerably recognized others. The second half of the book works out a Christian ethics of vulnerability, starting with discipleship, then grace and sin, then the virtues, and finally the communion of saints, the works of mercy, and the beatitudes. (shrink)