This chapter clarifies important component of alignment in character creation and development. It demonstrates an application of moral philosophy and introduces ethical dilemmas that allow players to make meaningful moral choices leads to a more rewarding gaming experience. The chapter highlights philosophy's most enduring and frustrating questions. According to Dungeons Dragons (DD), the alignment is an element of the player's character sheet that clarifies their worldview and moral outlook. It is also a category that can limit character class and an (...) aura that allows spells or abilities to detect a character's moral outlook – and if necessary “smite” that evil (or good) into oblivion. The DD attracts imaginative players. A party is likely be filled with virtuous paragons, nefarious knaves, and pragmatists. (shrink)

Recently, new developments took place in the Dutch debate on the legislation of euthanasia. After a brief account of that debate, the article discusses a new government proposal for legislation in this field, which was submitted to the Dutch parliament in November 1991. This proposal relates not only to euthanasia but also to some other medical decisions concerning the end of life. The author concludes that, for several reasons, it is unsatisfactory.

The literature on collective action largely ignores the constraints that moral principle places on action-prompting intentions. Here I suggest that neither individualism nor holism can account for the generality of intentional contents demanded by universalizability principles, respect for persons, or proactive altruism. Utilitarian and communitarian ethics are criticized for nominalism with respect to social intentions. The failure of individualism and holism as grounds for moral theory is confirmed by comparing Tuomela's reductivist analysis of we-intentions with Gilbert's analysis of social facts. (...) Tuomela's account founders over intentions to cooperate, and Gilbert's cannot accommodate legitimate authority, vicarious agency, or group structure. (shrink)

On April 3, 1995, the Fourth Circuit upheld the right of a Maryland hospital to terminate a surgeon who was HIV-positive ). A resident in the University of Maryland Neurosurgical Training Program was dismissed when hospital administrators learned of his infection with HIV. The resident, known as Dr. Doe, claimed that his termination violated federal laws protecting persons with disabilities. The court upheld the hospital's actions as lawful and affirmed the trial court's grant of summary judgment for the hospital.Dr. Doe (...) charged that his dismissal from the training program violated the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. (shrink)

It has been asserted that there is no one universal proposition with which all philosophers would agree, including this one. The pre dicament has rarely been recognized and almost never accepted, although neither has it been successfully challenged. If the claim holds true for philosophy taken by itself, how much more must it of religion, the hold for crossfield interests, such as the philosophy philosophy of science and many others. The philosophy of educa tion is a particular case in point. (...) The topic of education itself is generally regarded as a dull af fair, a charge not entirely without substance. The blame for this usually falls on the fact that it has no inherent subject matter. The teachers of history teach history, the teachers of biology teach biology; but what do the teachers of education teach? Presumably how to teach; but this simply will not do because every topic requires its own sort of instruction. (shrink)

This volume offers an analysis of ethical concepts based on positive legal principles and court decisions, describing what actually happens in practice, or where there are no precedents available, what is most likely to happen. Broadly, it deals with the wide range of potentially difficult situations in which the community, as represented by the law, may come into conflict with the medical profession.

In this paper Rudolf Carnap's definition of 'analytic truth' based upon a meaning postulate At, for theoretical predicates of a given scientific theory is subjected to critique. It is argued that this definition is both too exclusive and too inclusive. Assuming that the preceding is correct, At is subjected to further scrutiny to determine how to interpret it and whether, and under what conditions, it need even be true. It is argued that a given At need not be true as (...) a sentence in a scientific theory and that it must be regarded as a confusedly presented rule for the same. It is then argued that even as a semantical rule for the theory, At cannot provide a guarantee of truth for some meaning postulate similar to At in the theory itself. It is thus argued that Carnap's definition of 'analytic truth' for theoretical predicates is unsatisfactory. (shrink)

I take this opportunity of correcting a particularly reprehensible error of my own on p. 140 of my edition of these poems. At A.A. 1. 730 read ‘…hoc multri †non ualuisse† putant’; and at 11. 3-4 of the critical apparatus read ‘equidem multi utique’ eqs. In other words, the manuscripts are unanimous in offering multi. I hope that Dr. Lenz will be glad to have this evidence of our common humanity.

It is often said that if free speech means anything it means freedom for the thought we hate. This core idea is generally referred to as “viewpoint neutrality” and is consistent with the liberal intuition that governments should remain neutral with regard to conceptions of the good life. None of the traditional defenses of free speech seem to secure viewpoint neutrality, however. Instead, each justification leaves room to censor some viewpoints. Ironically my defense of viewpoint neutrality does not come from (...) the liberal assumption that governments should remain neutral about the good life. I defend a version of the virtue argument for free speech that is explicitly perfectionist—-government does not have to remain neutral when promoting good lives for its citizens. Free speech is not just a means to promote virtue but is part and parcel of intellectual virtue—-a decidedly perfectionist value. (shrink)

Robert F. is an eighty-five-year-old who suffered a heart attack at home in a rural location some thirty minutes from any major hospital. By the time the paramedics arrived, he was unconscious and nonresponsive. After spontaneous return of circulation, they began their standard procedure of therapeutic hypothermia. Robert's core temperature was lowered using ice packs, and cold intravenous fluids were initiated. Soon afterward, Robert started to shiver when his body temperature reached 35.6° Celsius. He was then given a bolus of (...) vecuronium as a neuromuscular blockade, sedated, and intubated. He was also given a low-dose vasopressin for blood-pressure control. Shortly after Robert arrived in the emergency room, his daughter, his medical decision-maker, produced an advance directive documenting that her father has a do-not-resuscitate order, and she demanded that the breathing tube and any other life-sustaining treatments be withdrawn immediately. The medical staff is very reluctant to comply with this demand for immediate action. Until the neuromuscular blockade wears off, removing the ventilator will prevent Robert from breathing. Furthermore, it may take some time to reverse the therapeutic hypothermia procedure to the point that the patient is at normal temperature. In addition, therapeutic hypothermia itself often causes arrest, so the patient may need to be resuscitated again. Should the staff wait until the patient is warm or honor the decision of his daughter, who holds his medical power of attorney? (shrink)

In every generation the overwhelming majority of those who inhabited the imperium Romanum worked on the land and derived their sustenance directly from it. The notion is commonplace and scarcely admits of debate, but its implications for long have suffered unwarranted neglect. The well-being of any society ultimately rests upon the quantity and diversity of its food supplies, but the immediacy of their contact with the soil continually reminded the Roman people of this platitude with a force which few students (...) of their history today can readily appreciate. The annual yield of wheat in particular, always a staple item in the Roman diet, and to a lesser extent of such cereals as panic and millet, acutely affected every segment of the Roman community. One example will serve to illustrate the point. The dependence of the plebs urbana upon imported surpluses is notorious, equally the intense suffering and violence which typically accompanied any disruption of their supply. Such outbreaks frequently punctuated the chaotic final decades of the Republic, but they also scarred more than one régime during the first two centuries of the Principate. (shrink)