The Thebaid is not easy reading, and copyists have not helped to make it easier. There are many pitfalls in the language of Statius, and words cannot be taken always at their face value. I have erred myself and suffered. It may be of interest to give a few instances.

IGM form a unified group and we denote their consensus by the sign Z; in the absence of I we signify the consensus of GM with £. It will be seen that in the earlier part of Book I this family is reduced to M. Here one may sometimes call on the help of Harleianus 2564 saec. xv, which we call h; this manuscript, though overlaid with the vulgate text, shows a number of striking readings which reveal a source closely (...) related to G. At the end of the poem we lack the guidance of A, which, though not free from interpolations, is by far the most sincere witness; here the testimony of Cantabrigiensis Pembrokianus 280 saec. xii, which we call F and which in the earlier books shows more fidelity to the A-tradition than any other manuscript, is sometimes useful, though it cannot be relied on without grave reservations. Editors usually quote Monacensis 8122 as if it were a primary witness; it is nothing of the sort, but rather a much corrupted and interpolated offshoot of the A-tradition diluted by some contamination from Z. We use ω to indicate the mass of the vulgar manuscripts and ς to indicate some of them. (shrink)

This paper consists of commentaries about and the reprint of an autobiographical essay authored by Italian medium Eusapia Palladino and published in 1910. The details of the essay are discussed in terms of the writings of other individuals about the life and performances of the medium. The essay conveys a view of Palladino as a person who has suffered much in life and has a mission to help scientific research into mediumship. Typical of the positive emphasis in autobiographies in general, (...) the medium did not discuss negative aspects of her performances. Due to the fact that the essay appeared during Palladino's visit to New York City in which many authors branded her as a fraud, it may be speculated that the purpose of this autobiography was to elicit sympathy from the American public. While some of the statements that Palladino made about phenomena are consistent with the statements of other authors who have written about her, there are several statements that show alternate or incomplete versions of particular events in her life. The differences suggests that Palladino's essay and other discussions about the medium's life are not reliable when it comes to specific details and to biographical accuracy. (shrink)

This essay investigates the demands on adult children to provide care for their elderly/ill parents from a socio-moral perspective. In order to narrow the examination, the question pursued here is agent-relative: What social and moral complexities are involved for the adult child when her parent(s) need care? First, this article examines our society’s expectation that adult children are morally obligated to provide care for their parents. Second, the essay articulates how transgressing against this normative expectation can inure significant moral criticism. (...) The final sections present these tensions within the context of disability. (shrink)

A complex interaction of ideological, financial, social, and moral factors makes the financial sustainability of health care systems a challenge across the world. One difficulty is that some of the moral commitments of some health care systems collide with reality. In particular, commitments to equality in access to health care and to fair equality of opportunity undergird an unachievable promise, namely, to provide all with the best of basic health care. In addition, commitments to fair equality of opportunity are in (...) tension with the existence of families, because families are aimed at advantaging their own members in preference to others. Because the social-democratic state is committed to fair equality of opportunity, it offers a web of publicly funded entitlements that make it easier for persons to exit the family and to have children outside of marriage. In the United States, in 2008, 41% of children were born outside of wedlock, whereas, in 1940, the percentage was only 3.8%, and in 1960, 5%, with the further consequence that the social and financial capital generated through families, which aids in supporting health care in families, is diminished. In order to explore the challenge of creating a sustainable health care system that also supports the traditional family, the claims made for fair equality of opportunity in health care are critically reconsidered. This is done by engaging the expository device of John Rawls’s original position, but with a thin theory of the good that is substantively different from that of Rawls, one that supports a health care system built around significant copayments, financial counseling, and compulsory savings, with a special focus on enhancing the financial and social capital of the family. This radical recasting of Rawls, which draws inspiration from Singapore, is undertaken as a heuristic to aid in articulating an approach to health care allocation that can lead past the difficulties of social-democratic policy. (shrink)

Chervenak and McCullough, authors of the most acknowledged ethical framework for maternal–fetal surgery, rely on the ‘ethical–obstetrical’ concept of the fetus as a patient in order to determine what is morally owed to fetuses by both physicians and the women who gestate them in the context of prenatal surgery. In this article, we reconstruct the argumentative structure of their framework and present an internal criticism. First, we analyse the justificatory arguments put forward by the authors regarding the moral status of (...) the fetus qua patient. Second, we discuss the internal coherence and consistency of the moral obligations those authors derive from that concept. We claim that some of the dilemmas their approach is purported to avoid, such as the debate about the independent moral status of the fetus, and the foundation of the moral obligations of pregnant women (towards the fetuses they gestate) are not, all things considered, avoided. Chervenak and McCullough construct the obligations of physicians as obligations towards entities with equal moral status. But, at the same time, they assume that the woman has an independent moral status while the moral status of the fetus is dependent on the decision of the woman to present it to a physician for care. According to the logic of their own argumentation, Chervenak and McCullough implicitly admit a different moral status of the woman and the fetus, which will lead to different ascription of duties of the physician than those they ascribed. (shrink)

This paper compares clinical intuition and phenomenological intuition. I begin with a brief analysis of Husserl’s conception of intuition. Second, I review the attitude toward clinical intuition by physicians and philosophers. Third, I discuss the Aristotelian conception of intellectual intuition or nous and its relation to phronesis. Phronesis provides a philosophical ground for clinical intuition by linking medicine as both a techné and praxis. Considering medicine as a techné, Pellegrino and Thomasma exclude clinical intuitions from their philosophy of medicine. However, (...) in modeling clinical reasoning on phronesis, they link Aristotelian nous with clinical reasoning. While supporting the application of phronesis to clinical reasoning, I consider Pellegrino and Thomasma’s model deficient for eliminating intuition as an inalienable element of clinical reasoning. Rather, clinical intuitions are necessary in linking medicine as both art and practice. This becomes more obvious through the phenomenological analysis of clinical intuitions. Clinical reasoning and phenomenological intuitions are similar in joining the perceptual and intellectual aspects of human judgment. Furthermore, clinical intuitions can be extended to become phenomenological intuitions through phenomenological reflection. Clinical intuitions may be examined phenomenologically for their originary foundations. In this way, medicine acts as a phenomenological clue. Phenomenology provides a method to restore the Hippocratic synthesis of empirical observation and wholism associated with clinical intuitions. (shrink)

In the face of the moral pluralism that results from the death of God and the abandonment of a God's eye perspective in secular philosophy, bioethics arose in a context that renders it essentially incapable of giving answers to substantive moral questions, such as concerning the permissibility of abortion, human embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, etc. Indeed, it is only when bioethics understands its own limitations and those of secular moral philosophy in general can it better appreciate those tasks that (...) it can actually usefully perform in both the clinical and academic setting. It is the task of this paper to understand and reevaluate bioethics by understanding these limits. Academic bioethicists can analyze ideas, concepts, and claims necessary to understanding the moral questions raised in health care, assessing the arguments related to these issues, and provide an understanding of the different moral perspectives on bioethical issues. In the clinical setting, bioethicists can provide legal advice, serve as experts on IRBs, mediating disputes, facilitating decision-making and risk management, and clarifying normative issues. However, understanding this is only possible when one understands the history, genesis, and foundations of bioethics and its inability to provide a resolution to postmodern moral pluralism. (shrink)

H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr.; Medicine, Philosophy, and Theology: Christian Bioethics Reconsidered, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morali.

Humans are neophile, curious, and explorative animals with impressive capabilities for creative problem-solving. I discuss some of the ultimate roots behind human creativity while reviewing two books on creativity and problem-solving. To E. O. Wilson, the driv­ing force behind creativity is our instinctive love of novelty, and creativity’s ultimate goal is “self-understanding.” I elaborate on and question this assumption. The theories of inclu­sive fitness and group selection are discussed, with Wilson in favor of the latter. Finally, the theory of gene-culture (...) coevolution is introduced as fundamental to the unity of science and the humanities and to closing the gap between these two cultures. Eagleman and Brandt’s volume is more of an entertaining history of design and human inventiveness than a study in creativity as such. We hear about the three main operations of creative process: bending, blending, and breaking, and these operations are the primary means by which all ideas evolve, according to the authors. (shrink)

Byzantine Empire; economic and social conditions; history.

In its original expression as a medical value confidentiality may have been absolute; this concept has become eroded by patient consent, legal actions and change in the climate of public opinion. In particular requirements arising out of legal statutes and common law judgements have greatly modified the confidentiality of the doctor-patient relationship in societies deriving their law from English origins. Despite this, confidentiality remains a value which the physician must strive to preserve. He cannot however do this without considering its (...) effect upon possible innocent third parties. (shrink)

Although the responsibility for health debate has intensified in several ways between Norman Daniels’ 1985 Just healthcare and Just health: meeting health needs fairly of 2008, comparatively little space is dedicated to the issue in Just health, and Daniels notes repeatedly that his account “says nothing about personal responsibility for health”. Daniels considers health responsibility mainly in a particular luck-egalitarian version which he rejects because of its potentially unfeasible, penalising and inhumane character. But I show that he nonetheless acknowledges and (...) endorses explicitly other dimensions of health responsibility. I develop a wider, more nuanced and less punitive concept of health responsibility, which expands Daniels’ brief consideration and is compatible with the overall approach set out in Just health. In its application to preventative medicine and health promotion in particular, the concept is suited to support and complement the notion that “health is special”, which is central in Just health. The concept of health responsibility as co-responsibility specifies the subjects and objects of health responsibilities. It permits the attribution of responsibility without blame and disconnects the question of assigning responsibility from decisions about entitlement to treatment or different status in prioritisation decisions. This approach secures conceptual plausibility and clarity of the concept of health responsibility, is of use in policy making, and can help reduce political tensions. (shrink)

Eudemian ethics -- Nicomachean ethics -- Magna moralia -- Virtues and vices.

The European Union welfare standardsfor intensively kept pigs have steadilyincreased over the past few years and areproposed to continue in the future. It isimportant that the cost implications of thesechanges in welfare standards are assessed. Theaim of this study was to determine theprofitability of rearing pigs in a range ofhousing systems with different standards forpig welfare. Models were constructed tocalculate the cost of pig rearing (6–95 kg) in afully-slatted system (fulfilling minimum EUspace requirements, Directive 91630/EEC); apartly-slatted system; a high-welfare,straw-based system (...) (complying with the UK-basedRoyal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty toAnimals, Freedom Food standards) and afree-range system. The models were also used toassess the consequences of potential increasesin space allowance, and to estimate the cost ofrearing pigs under organic standards.The cost of rearing pigs ranged from92.0 p/kg carcass weight (cw) and 94.6 p/kgcw forthe partly-slatted and fully-slatted systems,to 98.8 p/kgcw and 99.3 p/kgcw for the FreedomFood and free-range systems respectively. Whenspace allowance was increased by 60% to levelsin a recent proposal to revise pig welfareDirective (91/630/EEC), the rearing costs wereunchanged for the free-range system but rose by4.6 p/kgcw for the fully-slatted system. Rearingcosts under organic standards were 31% higherthan in the free-range system. These resultssuggest that improved pig welfare can beachieved with a modest increase in cost. (shrink)

The traditional Christian focus concerning dying is on repentance, not dignity. The goal of a traditional Christian death is not a pleasing, final chapter to life, but union with God: holiness. The pursuit of holiness requires putting on Christ and accepting His cross. In contrast, post-traditional Christian and secular concerns with self-determination, control, dignity, and self-esteem make physician-assisted suicide and voluntary active euthanasia plausible moral choices. Such is not the case within the context of the traditional Christian experience of God, (...) which throughout its 2000 years has sternly condemned suicide and assisted suicide. The wrongness of such actions cannot adequately be appreciated outside the experience of that Christian life. Traditional Christian appreciations of death involve an epistemology and metaphysics of values in discordance with those of secular morality. This difference in the appreciation of the meaning of dying and death, as well as in the appreciation of the moral significance of suicide, discloses a new battle in the culture wars separating traditional Christian morality from that of the surrounding society. (shrink)

Transformations of the Confucian Way. John H. Berthrong. Westview, Boulder, Colorado, and Oxford 1998. xiv, 250 pp. Cloth £53.95, pbk £15.95. ISBN 0-8133-28055/2804-7.

The Travail of Nature shows that the theological tradition in the West is neither ecologically bankrupt, as some of its popular and scholarly critics have maintained, nor replete with immediately accessible, albeit long-forgotten, ecological riches hidden everywhere in its deeper vaults, as some contemporary Christians, who are profoundly troubled by the environmental crisis and other related concerns, might wistfully hope to find. This is why it is appropriate to speak of the ambiguous ecological promises of Christian theology.