Las sociedades democráticas contemporáneas se caracterizan por dos fenómenos empíricos ineludibles: 1) La existencia de profundos, persistentes e inerradicables desacuerdos políticos al interior de cada sociedad democrática; 2) la necesidad de adoptar cursos de acción política comunes a todos los ciudadanos (Waldron, 2005: 18). La concepción democrática agregacionista, receptada por la mayoría de las constituciones políticas, ha mostrado ciertas deficiencias para atender a esta realidad. En respuesta, han surgido dos concepciones democráticas rivales, a saber: a) agonal-pluralista; y b) deliberativa-republicana. Este (...) artículo tendrá por objetivos: 1) reconstruir los presupuestos conceptuales y normativos de estas dos concepciones; 2) contrastarlas; y 3) esbozar argumentos en defensa de una concepción democrática deliberativa-republicana. Para ello, la metodología a emplear será la de la filosofía política analítica, a saber: a) la reconstrucción racional de conceptos; y b) el equilibrio reflexivo. El presente trabajo pretende contribuir al debate actual acerca de cuál es la mejor concepción normativa de democracia a adoptar en las condiciones normativas no ideales contemporáneas. (shrink)

Simonet, Emanuel Nicolas Cortes Negative portrayals of older persons in Australian culture have led to ageist attitudes and behaviours towards them. For the older person, this can result in self-deprecation, which in turn leads to poorer health, diminished wellbeing, and reduced mental ability. It can also negatively affect an older person's motivation to be an active member of society, resulting in a sense of isolation. Ageism also disregards the positive economic and social contributions that older persons make to the (...) wider community. Drawing on both secular and Catholic viewpoints, this article seeks to recognise, challenge, and move to overcome ageism and age discrimination in Australia. (shrink)

Simonet, Emanuel Nicolas Cortes A Voice at the Table: An Integrated Model for Pastoral Care in Aged Mental Health, written by Rosemary Kelleher with Olga Yastrubetskaya, describes a practical model for integrating pastoral care practitioners into multidisciplinary teams within aged mental health services. While highlighting the importance of spiritual care within healthcare, the book also emphasises the need for pastoral care practitioners to have the essential skills and knowledge vital to being significant members of the multidisciplinary team. This article (...) offers a concise review of a most valuable resource. (shrink)

Simonet, Emanuel Nicolas Cortes The widespread over-consumption of alcohol in Australia has shaped its high tolerance to drinking culture. Australia has a complex socio-cultural relationship with alcohol and it is challenging to reduce high alcohol intake when it is so ingrained in our society. The substantial harms associated with over-consumption not only affect the drinker, but also impact upon the wider community. This article discusses the available evidence about the health and social harms for individuals that may result from (...) an over-consumption of alcohol and how these impact on society. More so, it discusses how effective alcohol policy strategies such as decreasing the availability of alcohol, increasing its price as well as promoting public awareness of the associated risks may help to reduce these harms. (shrink)

Simonet, Emanuel Nicolas Cortes; Herbert, Dilinie The Caroline Chisholm Centre for Health Ethics1 was established through the collaboration of private catholic hospitals in Victoria, namely: Cabrini Health, Calvary Health Care Bethlehem, Caritas Christi Hospice, Mercy Hospital for Women, Mercy Werribee Hospital, Mercy Palliative Care, St John of God Health Care, St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne, and St Vincent's Private Hospital Melbourne. Our role is to develop, review and respond to policies and procedures affecting Catholic Health Care; provide educational resources and (...) formation in ethics and offer ethics consultation and advisement. The Chisholm Health Ethics Bulletin is our quarterly publication that reports on ethical issues arising in health care as well as literature reviews of pertinent research topics that effect national and international interests. (shrink)

Simonet, Emanuel Nicolas Cortes Advance care planning is a significant and important process of end-of-life care. It provides the opportunity for persons to express their medical treatment preferences prior to losing the capacity to decide for themselves. It also allows for the appointment of substituted decision maker to make medical decisions for persons who have lost capacity. Whilst advance care planning can be beneficial when it is used effectively, the legislative framework surrounding advance care planning is complex and confusing. (...) This brief article will summarise advance care planning, its current legislative framework in Victoria and how proposed recommendations offered by the Inquiry into end of life choices may simplify advance care planning. (shrink)

Simonet, Emanuel Nicolas Cortes Victoria's new Mental Health Act 2014 came into operation on 1st July 2014. Corresponding with international standards, the new Act aims to strengthen the human rights of persons with mental illness. This is supported by the inclusion of a recovery framework which promotes a collaborative treatment approach, procedures that reduce the duration of compulsory treatment, as well as better mental health service oversight and safeguards. This article analyses and highlights these reforms from a human rights (...) perspective. (shrink)

Simonet, Emanuel Nicolas Cortes Victoria's new Powers of Attorney Act 2014 came into operation on 1 September 2015. Following recommendations by the Victorian Parliament Law Reform Committee, changes have been introduced in the new Act to simplify the process of making an enduring power of attorney. Reforms include the addition of a section on capacity, the introduction of a supportive attorney role distinct from the enduring power of attorney role, and the enhancement of safeguards. This article analyses how the (...) new Powers of Attorney Act 2014 empowers persons with impaired decision-making capacity and also strengthens the mechanisms which protect them from abuse. (shrink)

Because rate of force development is an emerging outcome measure for the assessment of neuromuscular function in unfatigued conditions, and it represents a valid alternative/complement to the classical evaluation of pure maximal strength, this scoping review aimed to map the available evidence regarding RFD as an indicator of neuromuscular fatigue. Thus, following a general overview of the main studies published on this topic, we arbitrarily compared the amount of neuromuscular fatigue between the “gold standard” measure and peak, early and late (...) RFD. Seventy full-text articles were included in the review. The most-common fatiguing exercises were resistance exercises, endurance exercises/locomotor activities, isokinetic contractions, and simulated/real sport situations. The most widely tested tasks were knee extension and plantar flexion. The reason for evaluating RFD was lacking in 36% of the studies. On average, the amount of fatigue for MVF was comparable to late RFD but lower compared to both peak RFD and early RFD. Even if the rationale for evaluating RFD in the fatigued state was often lacking and the specificity between test task and fatiguing exercise characteristics was not always respected in the included studies, RFD seems to be a valid indicator of neuromuscular fatigue. Based on our arbitrary analyses, peak RFD and early phase RFD appear even to be more sensitive to quantify neuromuscular fatigue than MVF and late phase RFD. (shrink)

El presente trabajo consta de tres partes esenciales que tienen como objetivo identificar y describir una parrhesia auténtica en Jesús, a la luz de los cursos dictados por Michel Foucault en el Collège de France. La primera y segunda parte se centran una caracterización,contrastación e indagación de las nociones elementales que constituyen los discursos de verdad en el ministerio de Jesús. En la tercera y última parte presento un acercamiento de Jesús con Diógenes y Sócrates,y cómo ciertos elementos de la (...) presencia de la parrhesia cínica presentes en Jesús posibilitan la idea de Jesús como un "héroe filosófico". (shrink)

Simonet, Emanuel Nicolas Cortes The Internet has made seeking for health information easy and convenient. This information provides medical knowledge which has the potential to empower both patients and health professionals. However, It is concerning that patients may attempt to use this type of information for self-diagnostic purposes, particularly those who are unfamiliar with medical terminology. Understanding web- based information effectively is most important to enable appropriate and informed healthcare decisions. Consequently, a new role for health professionals is indicated, (...) requiring them to become familiar with the health information available on the Internet, to direct patients to reliable sources, and to assist them in understanding and interpreting web-based health information. (shrink)

Simonet, Emanuel Nicolas Cortes Christine Bryden is a survivor of dementia and has been a passionate advocate for persons with dementia for more than 20 years. She has written 4 books. Her latest 2 books - Before I Forget and Nothing About Us, Without us! - give an insider's perspective into the lived experience of a person with dementia. This article provides a review of these 2 books which detail Christine Bryden's life story, and in doing so, highlight some (...) of the key messages expressed by the author. These key messages include examining the various misconceptions about persons with dementia, the required care for persons with dementia, as well as the need for building a dementia-friendly society. (shrink)

Simonet, Emanuel Nicolas Cortes Atul Gawande's book Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine, and What Matters in the End, draws upon both anecdotal stories and literary sources to highlight the importance of honest discussions as the end of life approaches. These discussions are particularly significant for older persons and terminally ill patients. Gawande believes that these discussions could be facilitated by more in-depth and focussed communication between the healthcare professional and the patient. Respecting the patient's values and priorities, and promoting a (...) sense of wellbeing and dignity are critical for quality care. (shrink)

This note studies the 1650 edition of Hugo Grotius’s De iure belli ac pacis. Using online and card catalogues, we have located eighty-nine copies, thirty-seven of which we examined in person, with an additional six fully digitised copies online. We hope that this research note on the preliminary results will generate greater interest in this unduly neglected edition. The note shows how, despite the connection established in the history of seventeenth-century politics that emphasized the ties between Grotius and the Peace (...) of Westphalia, the reception of Grotius’s 1650 edition bore no relation to the debates at Osnabrück and Münster. However, this is an influential edition, cherished by collectors and authors. According to our findings, it would be reproduced in a number of later reprints. (shrink)

This research note is the eighth instalment in our series of preliminary findings on the census and study of the reception of De iure belli ac pacis. The note presents a bibliographical description of Laurentius’ 1647 re-issue of the 1631 edition by Blaeu, considers Laurentius’ motivation and methods of production, lists and maps the currently known twenty-three surviving copies, and briefly describes two notable exemplars.

This research note offers a contextual overview of the printing history of Johann Blaeu’s 1646 octavo edition of Hugo Grotius’s De iure belli ac pacis (ibp). The note examines the printing process of the last edition that was prepared while Grotius was still alive, though it was published after his death. The note also sheds light on the theological dimension of some readers’ annotations, and concludes by discussing the impact this edition had on the modern versions of the text.

This is the fourth instalment of our census and study of the reception of the first nine editions of De iure belli ac pacis. Here we focus on the two versions that Johannes Janssonius issued in 1632, one with a copy of Mare liberum attached to it. This report outlines the place of the 1632 Janssonius edition in the context of his long-running rivalry with the printer Willem Blaeu and his firm. It then explores the typographical differences between the two (...) issues, their causes, and their significance for our understanding of the reception of the text. Finally, it provides the preliminary results of the census concerning the circulation and provenance of the fifty-three copies of this edition that we have found. We hope that this research note on the preliminary results will attract interest in this edition and that readers will kindly inform us of further copies. (shrink)

This article provides new information on the printing and readership history of the fifth edition of De iure belli ac pacis. Building on our earlier research on the way that the dispute between Willem Janszoon Blaeu and Johannes Janssonius influenced the publication of the 1631 edition of the text, this article studies how Blaeu harnessed his position to make the 1632 edition more reputable than the earlier version published by his rival. The article considers how, over four centuries, readers have (...) appreciated the quality of the production and three engaged with the text for radically different ends: Remigius Faesch, Baron von Boineburg, and Wendell Phillips. The article draws attention to the changes and continuities in reading and annotation patterns and offers preliminary insights into the themes that these influential readers focused on. We hope that it will inspire readers to bring further copies to our attention. (shrink)

This article constitutes the sixth instalment in our series on the census and study of the reception of the first nine editions of De iure belli ac pacis. This edition has long held a prominent place in studies and editions of Grotius’s work since it was the last published during his lifetime. The report first outlines the genesis of the edition in the context of Grotius’s relationship with Johann Blaeu (1596–1673) and Cornelius Blaeu (1610–1642), who had recently inherited the Blaeu (...) print firm from their father Willem. It then elucidates a number of crucial ways in which the 1642 edition differed from the five previous editions, especially via the addition of an extensive new series of annotations to ibp and a separate set addressed to the Epistle of Philemon. Finally, it concludes by providing the preliminary results of the census concerning the one hundred and twenty-one copies we have found. (shrink)

La presente investigación se circunscribe dentro del campo temático de la fenomenología trascendental de Edmund Husserl. Y tiene como objetivo el tratar de dilucidar dentro de la misma inmanencia de la experiencia trascendental del yo pienso, el modo no solo como surge la intersubjetividad, sino cómo este último concepto al igual que el de la egología, tienen como fundamento una noción de subjetividad moderna que por un lado, aparece dentro de la arquitectónica fenomenológica, como constituyente de sentido dentro de la (...) meditación husserliana, y por otro, puede aparecer como una noción que impide la elaboración de un nuevo concepto de hombre que incluya en su seno la alteridad, tal y como piensa Emmanuel Lévinas, y con ello, la posibilidad de hablar de un yo separado que no encuentre en lo otro una mera analogía suya, o extensión de su propia inmanencia, sino antes bien, la posibilidad de hallar en eso otro que nos sale al paso, la condición por la que se puede hablar de tiempo, de mundo y de existencia como relación con otros y para otros. (shrink)

Review of Emanuele Banfi, Nicola Grandi - Le lingue extraeuropee: Americhe, Australia e lingue di contatto.

This volume takes cue from the idea that the thought of no philosopher can be understood without considering it as the result of a constant, lively dialogue with other thinkers, both in its internal evolution as well as in its reception, re-use, and assumption as a starting point in addressing past and present philosophical problems. In doing so, it focuses on a feature that is crucially emerging in the historiography of early modern philosophy and science, namely the complexity in the (...) production of knowledge. The book explores the applicability of this approach to a long-considered armchair philosopher, namely René Descartes, who is now more and more understood as a full-blown scientist, networker, and intellectual éminence grise rather than as the mere philosopher of the cogito, as well as the originator of different ‘Cartesianisms’ which encompassed many ideas and approaches for long captured by dichotomic historiographical categories as rationalism and empiricism, or speculative and experimental philosophy. The essays gathered in the volume aim to address the ways in which Descartes’s philosophy evolved and was progressively understood by scientists, philosophers, and intellectuals from different contexts and eras, either by considering direct interlocutors of Descartes such as Isaac Beeckman and Elisabeth of Bohemia, early modern thinkers who developed upon his ideas and on particular topics as Nicolas Malebranche or Thomas Willis, those who adapted his overall methodology in developing new systems of knowledge as Johannes Clauberg and Pierre-Sylvain Régis, and contemporary thinkers from continental and analytic traditions like Emanuele Severino and Peter Strawson. (shrink)

How might a human communication system be bootstrapped in the absence of conventional language? We argue that motivated signs play an important role (i.e., signs that are linked to meaning by structural resemblance or by natural association). An experimental study is then reported in which participants try to communicate a range of pre-specified items to a partner using repeated non-linguistic vocalization, repeated gesture, or repeated non-linguistic vocalization plus gesture (but without using their existing language system). Gesture proved more effective (measured (...) by communication success) and more efficient (measured by the time taken to communicate) than non-linguistic vocalization across a range of item categories (emotion, object, and action). Combining gesture and vocalization did not improve performance beyond gesture alone. We experimentally demonstrate that gesture is a more effective means of bootstrapping a human communication system. We argue that gesture outperforms non-linguistic vocalization because it lends itself more naturally to the production of motivated signs. (shrink)

This paper compares two explanations of the process by which human communication systems evolve: iterated learning and social collaboration. It then reports an experiment testing the social collaboration account. Participants engaged in a graphical communication task either as a member of a community, where they interacted with seven different partners drawn from the same pool, or as a member of an isolated pair, where they interacted with the same partner across the same number of games. Participants’ horizontal, pair‐wise interactions led (...) “bottom up” to the creation of an effective and efficient shared sign system in the community condition. Furthermore, the community‐evolved sign systems were as effective and efficient as the local sign systems developed by isolated pairs. Finally, and as predicted by a social collaboration account, and not by an iterated learning account, interaction was critical to the creation of shared sign systems, with different isolated pairs establishing different local sign systems and different communities establishing different global sign systems. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of iconicity in spoken language and other human communication systems. First, we concentrate on graphical and gestural communication and show how semantically motivated iconic signs play an important role in creating such communication systems from scratch. We then consider how iconic signs tend to become simplified and symbolic as the communication system matures and argue that this process is driven by repeated interactive use of the signs. We then consider evidence for iconicity at the level (...) of the system in graphical communication and finally draw comparisons between iconicity in graphical and gestural communication systems and in spoken language. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of iconicity in spoken language and other human communication systems. First, we concentrate on graphical and gestural communication and show how semantically motivated iconic signs play an important role in creating such communication systems from scratch. We then consider how iconic signs tend to become simplified and symbolic as the communication system matures and argue that this process is driven by repeated interactive use of the signs. We then consider evidence for iconicity at the level (...) of the system in graphical communication and finally draw comparisons between iconicity in graphical and gestural communication systems and in spoken language. (shrink)

Although for the last 50 years, ethicists dealing with human experimentation have focused primarily on the need to protect individual research subjects and vulnerable groups, biomedical research, especially in genetics, now requires the establishment of standards for the protection of communities. We have developed such a strategy, based on five steps. (i) Identification of community characteristics relevant to the biomedical research setting, (ii) delineation of a typology of different types of communities using these characteristics, (iii) determination of the range of (...) possible community protections, (iv) creation of connections between particular protections and one or more community characteristics necessary for its implementation, and (v) synthesis of community characteristics and possible protections to define protections appropriate for each type of community. Depending on the particular community, consent and consultation, consultation alone, or no added protections may be required for research. (shrink)

This paper argues that contemporary philosophical literature on meaning in life has important implications for the debate about our obligations to non-human animals. If animal lives can be meaningful, then practices including factory farming and animal research might be morally worse than ethicists have thought. We argue for two theses about meaning in life: that the best account of meaningful lives must take intentional action to be necessary for meaning—an individual’s life has meaning if and only if the individual acts (...) intentionally in ways that contribute to finally valuable states of affairs; and that this first thesis does not entail that only human lives are meaningful. Because non-human animals can be intentional agents of a certain sort, our account yields the verdict that many animals’ lives can be meaningful. We conclude by considering the moral implications of these theses for common practices involving animals. (shrink)

Research seeking a scientific foundation for the theory of art appreciation has raised controversies at the intersection of the social and cognitive sciences. Though equally relevant to a scientific inquiry into art appreciation, psychological and historical approaches to art developed independently and lack a common core of theoretical principles. Historicists argue that psychological and brain sciences ignore the fact that artworks are artifacts produced and appreciated in the context of unique historical situations and artistic intentions. After revealing flaws in the (...) psychological approach, we introduce a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation. This framework demonstrates that a science of art appreciation must investigate how appreciators process causal and historical information to classify and explain their psychological responses to art. Expanding on research about the cognition of artifacts, we identify three modes of appreciation: basic exposure to an artwork, the artistic design stance, and artistic understanding. The artistic design stance, a requisite for artistic understanding, is an attitude whereby appreciators develop their sensitivity to art-historical contexts by means of inquiries into the making, authorship, and functions of artworks. We defend and illustrate the psycho-historical framework with an analysis of existing studies on art appreciation in empirical aesthetics. Finally, we argue that the fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure can be amended to meet the requirements of the framework. We conclude that scientists can tackle fundamental questions about the nature and appreciation of art within the psycho-historical framework. (shrink)

What does it mean to be a morally good person? It can be tempting to think that it is simply a matter of performing certain actions and avoiding others. And yet there is much more to moral character than our outward actions. We expect a good person to not only behave in certain ways but also to experience the world in certain ways within.

Human cognition and behavior are dominated by symbol use. This paper examines the social learning strategies that give rise to symbolic communication. Experiment 1 contrasts an individual-level account, based on observational learning and cognitive bias, with an inter-individual account, based on social coordinative learning. Participants played a referential communication game in which they tried to communicate a range of recurring meanings to a partner by drawing, but without using their conventional language. Individual-level learning, via observation and cognitive bias, was sufficient (...) to produce signs that became increasingly effective, efficient, and shared over games. However, breaking a referential precedent eliminated these benefits. The most effective, most efficient, and most shared signs arose when participants could directly interact with their partner, indicating that social coordinative learning is important to the creation of shared symbols. Experiment 2 investigated the contribution of two distinct aspects of social interaction: behavior alignment and concurrent partner feedback. Each played a complementary role in the creation of shared symbols: Behavior alignment primarily drove communication effectiveness, and partner feedback primarily drove the efficiency of the evolved signs. In conclusion, inter-individual social coordinative learning is important to the evolution of effective, efficient, and shared symbols. (shrink)

Interest in the computational aspects of modeling has been steadily growing in philosophy of science. This paper aims to advance the discussion by articulating the way in which modeling and computational errors are related and by explaining the significance of error management strategies for the rational reconstruction of scientific practice. To this end, we first characterize the role and nature of modeling error in relation to a recipe for model construction known as Euler’s recipe. We then describe a general model (...) that allows us to assess the quality of numerical solutions in terms of measures of computational errors that are completely interpretable in terms of modeling error. Finally, we emphasize that this type of error analysis involves forms of perturbation analysis that go beyond the basic model-theoretical and statistical/probabilistic tools typically used to characterize the scientific method; this demands that we revise and complement our reconstructive toolbox in a way that can affect our normative image of science. (shrink)

Malebranche's Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion is in many ways the best introduction to his thought, and provides the most systematic exposition of his philosophy as a whole. In it, he presents clear and comprehensive statements of his two best-known contributions to metaphysics and epistemology, namely, the doctrines of occasionalism and vision in God; he also states his views on such central issues as self-knowledge, the existence of the external world and the problem of theodicy. His skilful handling of (...) the dialogue form enables the reader to see how he responds to objections made to his earlier work The Search after Truth. This edition presents a translation of the text which is clear, readable and more accurate than any of its predecessors, together with an introduction that analyses Malebranche's central teachings and explains the importance of the Dialogues in the context of seventeenth-century philosophy. (shrink)

As genetic research increasingly focuses on communities, there have been calls for extending research protections to them. We critically examine guidelines developed to protect aboriginal communities and consider their applicability to other communities. These guidelines are based on a model of researcher-community partnership and span the phases of a research project, from protocol development to publication. The complete list of 23 protections may apply to those few non-aboriginal communities, such as the Amish, that are highly cohesive. Although some protections may (...) be applicable to less-cohesive communities, such as Ashkenazi Jews, analysis suggests substantial problems in extending these guidelines in toto beyond the aboriginal communities for which they were developed. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence and robots may progressively take a more and more prominent place in our daily environment. Interestingly, in the study of how humans perceive these artificial entities, science has mainly taken an anthropocentric perspective (i.e., how distant from humans are these agents). Considering people’s fears and expectations from robots and artificial intelligence, they tend to be simultaneously afraid and allured to them, much as they would be to the conceptualisations related to the divine entities (e.g., gods). In two experiments, (...) we investigated the proximity of representation between artificial entities (i.e., artificial intelligence and robots), divine entities and natural entities (i.e., humans and other animals) at both an explicit (Study 1) and an implicit level (Study 2). In the first study, participants evaluated these entities explicitly on positive and negative attitudes. Hierarchical clustering analysis showed that participants’ representation of artificial intelligence, robots and divine entities were similar, while the representation of humans tended to be associated with that of animals. In the second study, participants carried out a word/non-word decision task including religious semantic-related words and neutral words after the presentation of a masked prime referring to divine entities, artificial entities and natural entities (or a control prime). Results showed that after divine and artificial entity primes, participants were faster to identify religious words as words compared to neutral words arguing for a semantic activation. We conclude that people make sense of the new entities by relying on already familiar entities and in the case of artificial intelligence and robots, people appear to draw parallels to divine entities. (shrink)

To become more broadly applicable, positions on AI ethics require perspectives from non-Western regions and cultures such as China and Japan. In this paper, we propose that the addition of the concept of harmony to the discussion on ethical AI would be highly beneficial due to its centrality in East Asian cultures and its applicability to the challenge of designing AI for social good. We first present a synopsis of different definitions of harmony in multiple contexts, such as music and (...) society, which reveals that the concept is, at its core, about well-balanced relationships and appropriate actions which give rise to order, balance, and aesthetically pleasing phenomena. The mediator for these well-balanced relationships isTaktwhich is an ability to act thoughtfully and sensibly according to the specific situation and to put things into proportion and order. We propose that the central challenge of building harmonizing AI is to make intelligent systems tactful and also to design and use them tactfully. For an AI system to become tactful, it needs to be able to have an advanced sensitivity to the specific contexts which it is in and their social and ethical implications and have the capability of approximately inferring the emotional and cognitive states of people with whom it is interacting. (shrink)

Syllogisms (e.g. “All A are B; All B are C; What is true about A and C?”) are a long‐studied area of human reasoning. Riesterer, Brand, and Ragni compare a variety of models to human performance and show that not only do current models have a lot of room for improvement, but more importantly a large part of this improvement must come from examining individual differences in performance.

Commentators often claim that medical research subjects are coerced into participating in clinical studies. In recent years, such claims have appeared especially frequently in ethical discussions of research in developing countries. Medical research ethics is more important than ever as we move into the 21st century because worldwide the pharmaceutical industry has grown so much and shows no sign of slowing its growth. This means that more people are involved in medical research today than ever before, and in the future (...) even more will be involved. However, despite the pressing need for reflection on research ethics, it is important to carefully identify the concerns we have about research. Otherwise we run the risk that the moral language we use, and which we hear other people use, may do our moral thinking for us. We argue that many recent claims about the occurrence of coercion in medical research are misguided and misuse the word "coercion." We try to identify the real problems, and urge people to attend carefully to the implications of their descriptions of moral problems in research. (shrink)

A scholarly edition of Nicolas Malebranche's Treatise on Nature and Grace by Patrick Riley. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

This book is the first extensive treatment of Husserl's phenomenology of time-consciousness. Nicolas de Warren uses detailed analysis of texts by Husserl, some only recently published in German, to examine Husserl's treatment of time-consciousness and its significance for his conception of subjectivity. He traces the development of Husserl's thinking on the problem of time from Franz Brentano's descriptive psychology, and situates it in the framework of his transcendental project as a whole. Particular discussions include the significance of time-consciousness for other (...) phenomenological themes: perceptual experience, the imagination, remembrance, self-consciousness, embodiment, and the consciousness of others. The result is an illuminating exploration of how and why Husserl considered the question of time-consciousness to be the most difficult, yet also the most central, of all the challenges facing his unique philosophical enterprise"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)