Digital Commons Network^™

Obligations In Offering To Disclose Genetic Research Results, Conrad Fernandez, Charles Weijer

Charles Weijer

No abstract provided.

Trust-Based Obligations Of The State And Physician-Researchers To Patient-Subjects, Paul Miller, Charles Weijer

Charles Weijer

When may a physician enroll a patient in clinical research? An adequate answer to this question requires clarification of trust-based obligations of the state and the physician-researcher respectively to the patient-subject. The state relies on the voluntarism of patient-subjects to advance the public interest in science. Accordingly, it is obligated to protect the agent-neutral interests of patient-subjects through promulgating standards that secure these interests. Component analysis is the only comprehensive and systematic specification of regulatory standards for benefit-harm evaluation by research ethics committees (RECs). Clinical equipoise, a standard in component analysis, ensures the treatment arms of a randomised control trial …

Revisiting The Ethics Of Hiv Prevention Research In Developing Countries, Charles Weijer, Guy Leblanc

Charles Weijer

Issues: We present key aspects of our paper, commissioned by UNAIDS in 2005, entitled, “Revisiting the ethics of HIV prevention research in developing countries.” In 2004 and 2005 we witnessed the closure or suspension of three international clinical trials testing tenofovir in the prevention of HIV infection in high risk groups due to the failure to provide free treatment to those who seroconvert during the conduct of the study. We examine critically moral claims for the provision of treatment to those who seroconvert in HIV prevention trials and ask whether it is a matter of moral obligation or moral negotiation? …

Review Of Metaethical Subjectivism By Richard Double, Matthew Pianalto

Matthew Pianalto

"There are no objective values." Thus begins J.L Mackie's classic Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (1977), in which metaethical error-theory was originally expounded. Error-theory holds that although moral judgments appear to be about objective matters (e.g. what is really valuable, what we really ought to do), there is no good reason to believe that there are objective values, and so all moral judgments are false because they fail to refer. In Metaethical Subjectivism, Richard Double again makes the case for error-theory by focusing upon the fragmentary character of our moral intuitions and the apparent impossibility of corralling all of these …

Moral Lumps, Samantha Brennan

Samantha Brennan

Can all goods or bads be broken down into smaller and smaller pieces? Can all goods or bads be added together with some other good or bad to get a larger amount? Further, how does moral significance track the disaggregation and the aggregation of moral goods and bads? In Part 1, I examine the limits placed on aggregation by moderate deontological moral theories. This paper focuses in particular on the work of Judith Thomson and T.M. Scanlon as well as on some of my own past work on the question of aggregation in the context of overriding rights. In Part …

The Gods Drink Whiskey: Stumbling Toward Enlightenment In The Land Of The Tattered Buddha, Stephen Asma

Stephen T Asma

Asma, a professor of Buddhism at Columbia College in Chicago and the author of Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads (2001), recounts his intense and revelatory Cambodian adventures while teaching at Phnom Penh's Buddhist Institute. In an electrifying and frank mix of hair-raising anecdotes and expert analysis, he explicates the vast difference between text-based Buddhist teachings and daily life in a poor and politically volatile Buddhist society. Amid tales of massage parlors, marijuana-spiced pizza, and bloodshed, he cogently explains how Theravada Buddhism, the form practiced throughout Southeast Asia, differs from the Buddhism Westerners are familiar with, and how entwined it is …

What Does Vulnerability Mean?, Barry Hoffmaster

C. Barry Hoffmaster

No abstract provided.

Cooperation, ‘Ought Morally’, And Principles Of Moral Harmony, Brian Kierland

Brian Kierland

There is a theory that one ought morally to do the best one can, when ‘best’ is suitably interpreted. There are also some examples in which, although every agent involved does the best she can, the group composed of them does not. Some philosophers think that these examples show the theory to be wrong. In particular, they think that such examples motivate a view which incorporates a requirement of cooperativeness in a particular way, though they disagree as to the exact nature of this requirement. This paper will argue both that such views are problematic and that the examples do …

Pornography, The Theory: What Utilitarianism Did To Action, By Frances Ferguson, Samantha Brennan

Samantha Brennan

No abstract provided.

Politicizing The (In)Audible : A Short Critique Of Mark Brett's Genesis (With Specific Reference To Genesis 34), Julie Kelso

Julie Kelso

In his recent book, _Genesis: Procreation and the Politics of Identity_, Mark Brett argues that Genesis (the first book of the Hebrew Bible) is a political text that addresses the debates within the `post-exilic' or `Persian' period concerning the nature of Israelite identity. The dominant push for ethnic purity found in the postexilic books of Ezra and Nehemiah is time and again undermined in Genesis by an integrationist polemic against the priestly desire for the `holy seed.' In other words, Brett argues that there is a discernible, 'inclusivist' (anti-ethnocentric) voice in Genesis. In this essay, I dispute the value he …

Vestiges And Communities : Franciscan Traces In Dante's New Life, Brenda Wirkus

Brenda Wirkus

Only the second volume dedicated to Dante and the Franciscans, this collection of essays offers a Franciscan reading of the Divine Comedy. Nine of the ten essays address how Dante’s Comedy and his Vita Nuova were influenced by Franciscan spirituality; the tenth essay addresses the influence that Dante’s Comedy had on the preaching of the Franciscan Order. More specifically, the essays in this volume are truly interdisciplinary and contribute to the understanding of how Dante understood and employed Franciscan sources in his literary production and how Bernardino of Siena integrated Dante’s work in his preaching.

A History Of Political Experience, Leslie Marsh

Leslie Marsh

This book survives superficial but fails deeper scrutiny. A facile, undiscerning criticism of Lectures in the History of Political Thought (LHPT) is that on Oakeshott’s own account these are lectures on a non-subject: ‘I cannot detect anything which could properly correspond to the expression “the history of political thought”’ (p. 32). This is an entirely typical Oakeshottian swipe – elegant and oblique – at the title of the lecture course he inherited from Harold Laski. If title and quotation sit awkwardly we should remember that Oakeshott never prepared the text for publication – a fortiori he did not prepare it …

How To Predict Future Duration From Present Age, Bradley Monton, Brian Kierland

Brian Kierland

The physicist J. Richard Gott has given an argument which, if good, allows one to make accurate predictions for the future longevity of a process, based solely on its present age. We show that there are problems with some of the details of Gott's argument, but we defend the core thesis: in many circumstances, the greater the present age of a process, the more likely a longer future duration.

Institutions And Process, Danielle Lake

Danielle L Lake

The Balm Of Gilead: Is The Provision Of Treatment To Those Who Seroconvert In Hiv Prevention Trials A Matter Of Moral Obligation Or Moral Negotiation?, Charles Weijer, Guy Leblanc

Charles Weijer

Must treatment be provided to subjects who acquire HIV during the course of a prevention study? An analysis of ethical foundation, regulation, and recent argumentation provides no basis for the obligation. We outline an alternative approach to the problem based on moral negotiation.

The A To Z Of Logic, Harry Gensler, S.J.

Harry J. Gensler, S.J.

The A to Z of Logic introduces the central concepts of the field in a series of brief, non-technical, cross-referenced dictionary entries. The 352 alphabetically arranged entries give a clear, basic introduction to a very broad range of logical topics. Entries can be found on deductive systems, such as propositional logic, modal logic, deontic logic, temporal logic, set theory, many-valued logic, mereology, and paraconsistent logic. Similarly, there are entries on topics relating to those previously mentioned such as negation, conditionals, truth tables, and proofs. Historical periods and figures are also covered, including ancient logic, medieval logic, Buddhist logic, Aristotle, Ockham, …

Has God Said?: Scripture, The Word Of God, And The Crisis Of Theological Authority, John Morrison

John D. Morrison

No abstract provided.

Fiduciary Obligation In Clinical Research, Paul Miller, Charles Weijer

Charles Weijer

Heated debate surrounds the question whether the relationship between physician-researcher and patient-subject is governed by a duty of care. Miller and Weijer argue that fiduciary law provides a strong legal foundation for this duty, and for articulating the terms of the relationship between physician-researcher and patient-subject.

From Hymn To Tragedy: Aristotle's Biological Genealogy Of Poetic Kinds, David Depew

David J Depew

This book examines the evidence for the pre-history and origin of drama. The belief that drama developed from religious ritual has been commonplace since the time of Aristotle but here is little agreement on just how this happened. Recently, scholars have even challenged the historical connection between drama and ritual. This volume an examination on the origins of Greek drama to date. It brings together seventeen essays by leading scholars in a variety of fields, including classical archaeology, iconography, cultural history, theatre history, philosophy, and religion. Though it primarily focuses up on ancient Greece, the volume includes comparative studies of …

Historical Dictionary Of Logic, Harry Gensler, S.J.

Harry J. Gensler, S.J.

This one-volume encyclopedia of logic introduces the central concepts of the field in a series of brief, non-technical, cross-referenced dictionary entries. The 352 alphabetically arranged entries give a clear, basic introduction to a very broad range of logical topics. Entries can be found on deductive systems, such as propositional logic, modal logic, deontic logic, temporal logic, set theory, many-valued logic, mereology, and paraconsistent logic. Similarly, there are entries on topics relating to those previously mentioned such as negation, conditionals, truth tables, and proofs. Historical periods and figures are also covered, including ancient logic, medieval logic, Buddhist logic, Aristotle, Ockham, Boole, …

Commentary On Common Morality, Michael Pritchard

Michael Pritchard

“La Teoría Post-Rawlsiana De La Desobediencia Civil” (Civil Disobedience After Rawls), Andrés Henao Castro

Andrés Fabián Henao-Castro

No abstract provided.