Should there be a female age limit on public funding for assisted reproductive technology (ART)? The question bears significant economic and sociopolitical implications and has been contentious in many countries. We conceptualise the question as one of justice in resource allocation, using three much-debated substantive principles of justice—the capacity to benefit, personal responsibility, and need—to structure and then explore a complex of arguments. Capacity-to-benefit arguments are not decisive: There are no clear cost-effectiveness grounds to restrict funding to those older women (...) who still bear some capacity to benefit from ART. Personal responsibility arguments are challenged by structural determinants of delayed motherhood. Nor are need arguments decisive: They can speak either for or against a female age limit, depending on the conception of need used. We demonstrate how these principles can differ not only in content but also in the relative importance they are accorded by governments. Wide variation in ART public funding policy might be better understood in this light. We conclude with some inter-country comparison. New Zealand and Swedish policies are uncommonly transparent and thus demonstrate particularly well how the arguments we explore have been put into practice. (shrink)

This anthology is a thorough introduction to classic literature for those who have not yet experienced these literary masterworks. For those who have known and loved these works in the past, this is an invitation to reunite with old friends in a fresh new format. From Shakespeare's finesse to Oscar Wilde's wit, this unique collection brings together works as diverse and influential as The Pilgrim's Progress and Othello. As an anthology that invites readers to immerse themselves in the masterpieces of (...) the literary giants, it is must-have addition to any library. (shrink)

_The Ethics of Pregnancy, Abortion and Childbirth_ addresses the unique moral questions raised by pregnancy and its intimate bodily nature. From assisted reproduction to abortion and ‘vital conflict’ resolution to more everyday concerns of the pregnant woman, this book argues for pregnancy as a close human relationship with the woman as guardian or custodian. Four approaches to pregnancy are explored: ‘uni-personal’, ‘neighborly’, ‘maternal’ and ‘spousal’. The author challenges not only the view that there is only one moral subject to consider (...) in pregnancy, but also the idea that the location of the fetus lacks all inherent, unique significance. It is argued that the pregnant woman is not a mere ‘neighbor’ or helpful stranger to the fetus but is rather already in a real familial relationship bringing real familial rights and obligations. If the status of the fetus is conclusive for at least some moral questions raised by pregnancy, so too are facts about its bodily relationship with, and presence in, the woman who supports it. This lucid, accessible and original book explores fundamental ethical issues in a rich and often neglected area of philosophy in ways of interest also to those from other disciplines. (shrink)

The social construction of reality is influenced extensively by the mass media. Commercialised images of masculinity, including discourses to interpret it, are continuously reflected and/or created by sources of mass media, in a myriad of ways. These images are subjectively loaded, but still effectively communicate to us, and even entice and persuade us. It furthermore wields extensive power over men - especially over their self-images, passions, and egos. In this article, dominating images and discourses concerning manhood and male identity - (...) particularly those displayed in men's health magazines - were critically examined. This was done through a thematic analysis of 123 issues of MHM cover pages. The investigation showed that MHM is infused with traditional masculine ideology. Moreover, MHM fails to confront discourses that endorse hegemonic masculinity, for the sake of holistic health. It was suggested that a sober, precautionary, health strategy should challenge men to critically engage with MHM's reigning creed: 'big, hard and up'. This creed incites a utilitarian view of sexuality within a culture of performance-driven masculinity, which subsequently fuels anxieties that can lead to unhealthy issues, such as body image dissatisfaction. From a pastoral care perspective, it was asserted that Christian men need to search for alternative ways to instigate their capacity to experience and facilitate authentic intimacy, in order to work toward the social construction of more balanced and healthy discourses on male identity. (shrink)

I have argued in other work that emotion, attentional functions, and executive functions are three interpenetrant global state variables, essentially differential slices of the consciousness pie. This paper will outline the columnar architecture and connectivities of the PAG (periaqueductal gray), its role in organizing prototype states of emotion, and the re-entry of PAG with the extended reticular thalamic activating system (“ERTAS”). At the end we will outline some potential implications of these connectivities for possible functional correlates of PAG networks that (...) are just starting to be mapped. Overall, we will look at many lines of evidence that PAG should be conceptualized as a peri-reticular structure that has a foundational role in emotion, in generating the meaningful organization of behavior by the brain through prototype emotional states, and in allowing the various emotional systems to globally influence and tune both the forebrain and brainstem. Finally, we address implications of these concepts for what is currently understood about consciousness, underlining the need for somewhat more humility within consciousness studies about our current level of understanding of consciousness in the brain, combined with a deeper appreciation of the intrinsic connections between emotion and consciousness. One hopes that more concerted empirical interest in structures underneath the thalamus, combined with a deeper appreciation for the fundamental role that organismic and social value must have in bootstrapping awareness in the developing brain, would begin more widely to influence the fundamental lines of neuroscientific research in both emotion studies and consciousness studies. (shrink)

Abortion for life-limiting foetal anomaly is often an intensely painful choice for the parents; though widely offered and supported, it is surprisingly difficult to defend in ethical terms. Abortion on this ground is sometimes defended as foetal euthanasia but has features which sharply differentiate it from standard non-voluntary euthanasia, not least the fact that any suffering otherwise anticipated for the child may be neither severe nor prolonged. Such abortions may be said to reduce suffering for the family including siblings – (...) a consideration rarely stated so explicitly in defences of postnatal euthanasia – or for the woman who must in any case face the eventual loss of her baby, and for whom the abortion is seen as therapeutic in minimising pain. Finally, the abortion may be said to constitute the cessation of morally optional life support on the part of the woman, and/or to be a ‘social’ choice she is entitled to make, whether or not this in fact promotes her interests or those of her child. These defences need honest exploration: the intense parental suffering caused by the choice to end an often much-wanted pregnancy should not preclude but rather encourage the question whether this choice can indeed be ethically proposed to couples, especially compared with the neonatal palliative care (‘perinatal hospice’) approach so well received by parents who experience it. (shrink)

In his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Thomas Reid offers a barrage of objections to the view, held by David Hume, that conceivability implies possibility. In this paper, I present Reid's first two objections to the ‘maxim of conceivability’ and defend Hume from them. The first objection concerns our ability to understand impossible claims, while the second concerns thoughts about impossible claims (such as, for instance, the thought that they are impossible). Reid's objections have special force against Hume (...) because of his commitment to analyse all operations of the understanding in terms of conception. I argue that these objections fail, on the grounds that they presuppose substantive views about language which we are not warranted in attributing to Hume. Ultimately, Reid's objections help us draw out a set of intertwined issues about the language-mind relationship in Hume. (shrink)

Fish, S. Georgics of the mind: Bacon's philosophy and the experience of his Essays.--Brett, R. L. Thomas Hobbes.--Watt, I. Realism and the novel.--Tuveson, E. Locke and Sterne.--Kampf, L. Gibbon and Hume.--Frye, N. Blake's case against Locke.--Abrams, M. H. Mechanical and organic psychologies of literary invention.--Ryle, G. Jane Austen and the moralists.--Schneewind, J. B. Moral problems and moral philosophy in the Victorian period.--Donagan, A. Victorian philosophical prose: J. S. Mill and F. H. Bradley.--Pitcher, G. Wittgenstein, nonsense, and Lewis Carroll.--Bolgan, (...) A. C. The philosophy of F. H. Bradley and the mind and art of T. S. Eliot: an introduction.--Davie, D. Yeats, Berkeley, and Romanticism.--Ross, M. L. The mythology of friendship: D. H. Lawrence, Bertrand Russell, and "The Blind man".--Rosenbaum, S. P. The philosophical realism of Virginia Woolf.--Bibliography (p. 357-360). (shrink)

Spinoza’s Ethics must contain some of philosophy’s most baffling statements. All things are animate; the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things: what would I be committed to in agreeing with these doctrines? His austere mode of exposition, sparing of illustrations and discursive explanations, ensures that any answer must be highly speculative.His weakness for dark sayings seems to have communicated itself to some of his best-known commentators. Of course where a philosopher’s thought (...) is itself opaque one would be unreasonable to expect lucidity in a commentator’s exposition of it. However he has been described as holding puzzling, to my mind unintelligible opinions on subjects concerning which, as far as I can see, his own statements more naturally suggest a much clearer and more comprehensible interpretation. There are problems enough in understanding his thought without adding needlessly to the list. I think there has been such an addition in discussion of his doctrines about the causal relationship between God and finite creatures, and this paper is devoted to suggesting another account of his thought on that topic which combines, I think, the advantages of being more intelligible and a more natural construction to place on his own statements, than the set of opinions generally laid at his door. (shrink)

Cooperation in wrongdoing is an everyday matter for all of us, though we need to discern when such cooperation is morally excluded as constituting formal cooperation, as opposed to material (unintended) cooperation whether justified or otherwise. In this paper, I offer examples of formal cooperation such as referral of patients for certain procedures where the cooperating doctor intends an intrinsically wrongful plan of action on the part of the patient and a medical colleague. I also consider a case of formal (...) cooperation where the cooperator intends a choice on the part of another person that is not intrinsically wrong, but wrong in the circumstances because the person believes it will cause serious uncompensated harm. (shrink)