This book reveals and discusses the foundations of law and justice. Fifteen leading lawyers and philosophers of law, representing thirteen nations and fifteen different philosophical schools examine the value and purpose of law, and the nature and requirements of law and justice. Some of the world's most learned and provocative legal scholars address the ultimate questions of legal and social philosophy from all angles and the broadest possible perspective, with special reference to the work of Mortimer Newlin Stead Sellers, and (...) the republican, liberal, and analytical schools of legal thought. The conclusions reached here are not fully unanimous, congruent or conclusive, but they represent the pinnacle of legal scholarship as it exists today and furnish the necessary basis for any future study of law, justice, or the ultimate requirements of just, effective and legitimate law and society. (shrink)

Donation after circulatory determination of death (DCDD) is an accepted practice in the United States, but heart procurement under these circumstances has been debated. Although the practice is experiencing a resurgence due to the recently completed trials using ex vivo perfusion systems, interest in thoracoabdominal normothermic regional perfusion (TA-NRP), wherein the organs are reanimated in situ prior to procurement, has raised many ethical questions. We outline practical, ethical, and equity considerations to ensure transplant programs make well-informed decisions about TA-NRP. We (...) present a multidisciplinary analysis of the relevant ethical issues arising from DCDD-NRP heart procurement, including application of the Dead Donor Rule and the Uniform Definition of Death Act, and provide recommendations to facilitate ethical analysis and input from all interested parties. We also recommend informed consent, as distinct from typical “authorization,” for cadaveric organ donation using TA-NRP. (shrink)

Although transhumanism offers hope for the transcendence of human biological limitations, it generates many intrinsic and consequential ethical concerns. The latter include issues such as the exacerbation of social inequalities and the exponentially increasing technological capacity to cause harm. To mitigate these risks, many thinkers have initiated investigations into the possibility of moral enhancement that could limit the power disparities facilitated by biotechnological enhancement. The arguments often focus on whether moral enhancement is morally permissible, or even obligatory, and remain largely (...) in the realm of the hypothetical. This paper proposes that psilocybin may represent a viable, practical option for moral enhancement and that its further research in the context of moral psychology could comprise the next step in the development of moral transhumanism. (shrink)

The theory of mental models and its computer implementations have led to crucial experiments showing that no standard logic—the sentential calculus and all logics that include it—can underlie human reasoning. The theory replaces the logical concept of validity (the conclusion is true in all cases in which the premises are true) with necessity (conclusions describe no more than possibilities to which the premises refer). Many inferences are both necessary and valid. But experiments show that individuals make necessary inferences that are (...) invalid, e.g., Few people ate steak or sole; therefore, few people ate steak. Other crucial experiments show that individuals reject inferences that are not necessary but valid, e.g., He had the anesthetic or felt pain, but not both; therefore, he had the anesthetic or felt pain, or both. Nothing in logic can justify the rejection of a valid inference: a denial of its conclusion is inconsistent with its premises, and inconsistencies yield valid inferences of any conclusions whatsoever including the one denied. So inconsistencies are catastrophic in logic. In contrast, the model theory treats all inferences as defeasible (nonmonotonic), and inconsistencies have the null model, which yields only the null model in conjunction with any other premises. So inconsistences are local. Which allows truth values in natural languages to be much richer than those that occur in the semantics of standard logics; and individuals verify assertions on the basis of both facts and possibilities that did not occur. (shrink)

Commentary of the verse work with English explanation on the Atman and self-realization; includes text.

A [1983] review, 'Relativity before Einstein' made no mention of the work of Joseph Larmor, whose early derivation of the Lorentz transformation seems to be less well known than those of Lorentz and Poincare. In 1897, Larmor, starting from a first-order transformation similar to Lorentz's first order version, presented the correct form of what is now known as the Lorentz transformation. In his presentation of the theory in 1900 Larmor saw the time dilation effect as a consequence of Maxwell's electromagnetic (...) theory. It was Lorentz who, in 1895, introduced the notion of the relativity of simultaneity (local time), without the time dilation effect. Poincare in 1900 discussed how Lorentz's local time would arise from the procedure of synchronizing moving clocks by exchanging light signals assumed to travel at the same speed in either direction. Lorentz presented the correct version of the transformation in 1899, and discussed the variation of mass with velocity arising from it. In 1902 Lorentz was aware of Larmor's 1897 work but apparently missed its significance. Nevertheless, the credit for the first presentation of the Lorentz transformation including the crucial time dilation belongs to Larmor. (shrink)

Svoeobrazie drevnerusskoĭ filosofskoĭ mysli -- Osnovnye napravlenii︠a︡ drevnerusskoĭ mysli -- Prilozhenie. Pami︠a︡tniki religiozno-filosofskoĭ mysli Drevneĭ Rusi.

The spirit of enquiry should overwhelm the respect for tradition. The essays collected in this volume are expected to quicken that spirit.

Selected articles on Marxism, nationalism, and humanism by a radical humanist leader and Communist international; includes study on his life and work.

The twentieth century has been called the age of science. Indeed, one of its most salient features is a continuous and accelerating advance in our knowledge of nature, accompanied by progress in technology and engineering. The middle of the century witnessed a new revolution in science and technology which brought about radical changes in economic production and everyday life, which brought nature under further control on our planet and ventured into outer space. These advances in science and technology in an (...) age of automation and electronic "brains," of nuclear energy and artificial satellites, exercise a growing influence on all aspects of social life, including the way in which art develops. (shrink)

It is generally accepted among Marxists that the laws of materialist dialectics represent a great, scientifically significant achievement for human knowledge, and that they develop as cognition advances. It is also generally accepted that, under new conditions - for example, in a fundamentally new phase in the development of human society such as is presented by socialism - the objective laws of dialectics acquire distinctive new characteristics, are altered, modified. But is it proper to speak of change or evolution of (...) the laws of objective dialectics? Two different viewpoints on this matter were clearly present at the USSR Symposium in April 1965. (shrink)

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

These words occur in Appian's account of the riot which led to the death of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus in 133 B.C. The tribunician elections had been adjourned from the previous day, and Gracchus, who irregularly sought re-election, had with his supporters taken possession of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol. The assembly broke up in disorder amid wild rumours that Gracchus had deposed all his colleagues or had declared himself tribune for the following year without election or had actually (...) demanded the diadem. The Senate meanwhile had been in session in the temple of Fides, and upon receipt of the news from the Capitol Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio urged the consul, Publius Mucius Scaevola, to crush the tyrant. When he declared that he would not put any citizen to death without trial, Nasica, calling loudly upon those who desired the safety of their country to follow him, mounted the Capitol at the head of a considerable body of Senators and led the attack on Gracchus and his partisans. (shrink)