This anthology has contributions about the role of legal perspectives in many countries of the South.

Over the past few years, over a dozen states have proposed, and almost as many have passed, something referred to as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a piece of legislation that makes abortion impermissible once fetal pain is possible and that further stipulates the fetus can feel pain at or before 20 weeks of gestation. Some very important questions immediately relevant to the abortion debate, perhaps even to the more complex issue of fetal rights, are raised by this legislation, (...) especially because it would impinge on the second-trimester abortion rights guaranteed by Roe. We first inquire whether the claim of fetal pain perception at or before 20 weeks is true and how such a claim should be substantiated. Next, we inquire whether the fetal capacity to experience pain, at whatever stage of development, reflects on the morality of abortion and whether it should be at all relevant to determining its legality. Finally, we would like to explore the implications that a commitment to a pain-related or sentience criterion of rights might have for a pro-life agenda. (shrink)

This book comprises material on colour which was written by Wittgenstein in the last eighteen months of his life. It is one of the few documents which shows him concentratedly at work on a single philosophical issue. The principal theme is the features of different colours, of different kinds of colour and of luminosity—a theme which Wittgenstein treats in such a way as to destroy the traditional idea that colour is a simple and logically uniform kind of thing. This edition (...) consists of Wittgenstein's basic German text, together with an English translation. (shrink)

Negotiation is a complex and dynamic decision process during which parties perceptions, preferences, and roles may change. Modelling such a process requires flexible and powerful tools. The use of rule-based formalism is therefore expanded from its traditional expert system type technique, to structuring and restructuring non-trivial processes like negotiation. Using rules we build a model of a negotiation problem. Some rules are used to infer positions and reactions of the parties, other rules are used to modify problem representation when such (...) a modification is necessary. We illustrate the approach with a contract negotiation case between two large companies. We also show how this approach could help one party to realize that negotiations are being carried on against their assumptions and expectations. (shrink)

In this paper we will argue in favor of federal funding of elective abortion, more specifically in support of Medicaid funding. To do so, we will address the restrictions on public funding presently in place and demonstrate that the various justifications offered in their defense are in­adequate. We will then suggest that the ‘failure to enable’ represented by a ban on Federal funding is morally equivalent to an outright prohibition on abortion for the target population. Just as a moral equivalence (...) can be established between killing and letting die in symmetrical cases, like criteria for equivalence can be established that help to identify those failures to make possible that are morally indistinguishable from proscriptions. On this basis, it can be shown that restrictions on Federal funding in such contexts can be thought to carry the same moral liability as prohibitions. (shrink)

Research from behavioural sciences shows that people reach decisions in a much less rational and well-considered way than was often assumed. The doctrine of informed consent, which is an important ethical principle and legal requirement in medical practice, is being challenged by these insights into decision-making and real-world choice behaviour. This article discusses the implications of recent insights of research on decision-making behaviour for the informed consent doctrine. It concludes that there is a significant tension between the often non-rational choice (...) behaviour and the traditional theory of informed consent. Responsible ways of dealing with or solving these problems are considered. To this end, patient decisions aids are discussed as suitable interventions to support autonomous decision-making. However, current PDAs demand certain improvements in order to protect and promote autonomous decision-making. Based on a conception of autonomy, we will argue which type of improvements are needed. (shrink)

The contention that abortion harms women constitutes a new strategy employed by the pro-life movement to supplement arguments about fetal rights. David C. Reardon is a prominent promoter of this strategy. Post-abortion syndrome purports to establish that abortion psychologically harms women and, indeed, can harm persons associated with women who have abortions. Thus, harms that abortion is alleged to produce are multiplied. Claims of repression are employed to complicate efforts to disprove the existence of psychological harm and causal antecedents of (...) trauma are only selectively investigated. We argue that there is no such thing as post-abortion syndrome and that the psychological harms Reardon and others claim abortion inflicts on women can usually be ascribed to different causes. We question the evidence accumulated by Reardon and his analysis of data accumulated by others. Most importantly, we question whether the conclusions Reardon has drawn follow from the evidence he cites. (shrink)

This book comprises material on colour which was written by Wittgenstein in the last eighteen months of his life. It is one of the few documents which shows him concentratedly at work on a single philosophical issue. The principal theme is the features of different colours, of different kinds of colour and of luminosity—a theme which Wittgenstein treats in such a way as to destroy the traditional idea that colour is a simple and logically uniform kind of thing. This edition (...) consists of Wittgenstein's basic German text, together with an English translation. (shrink)

A survey of 106 medical students assessing their interest in and attitudes to medical ethics in the curriculum is reported by the authors. Results indicate that 64 per cent of the students rated the importance of medical ethics to good medical care as high or critical and 66 per cent desired to learn more about the topic. However, in reports of patient encounters identifying ethical issues, less than six per cent of the students reported a frequency of more than one (...) such patient encounter per week. The students also demonstrated a greater awareness of more obvious ethical issues than of more subtle, less publicised issues. When asked how medical ethics should be taught, the students clearly affirmed a desire for an integrated exposure to the subject throughout the medical curriculum. Possible implications of these findings for medical education are discussed. (shrink)

In this commentary, we set out the specifics of how Glowacki's game theoretical framework for the evolution of peace could be incorporated within broader cultural evolutionary approaches. We outline a formal proposal for prisoner's dilemma games investigating raid-based conflict. We also centre an ethnographic lens to understand the norms surrounding war and peace in intergroup interactions in small-scale communities.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:DOES GOD HAVE A QUIDDITY ACCORDING TO AVICENNA* IN THE NEW critical edition of Avicenna's MemphyS'ics by S. Van Riet at Louvain (I, 1977; II, 1980; III, 1983), Gerard Verbeke states that according to Avicenna, "L'Etre necessaire n'a pas une essence qui est distincte de son existence" (II, p. * 42, at note 159), i.e. that the Necessary Being does not have an essence that is distinct from its (...) existence. One looks in vain for a precise reference to an Avicennian text. On the other hand, in a three-part study, Albert G. Judy, O.P., "Avicenna's Me1taphy8'ics in the Summa contra Gentiles," published in Angelicum, part I: 52 (1975) 340-384; part II: 541-586; part Ill: 53 (1976) 183-226, states quite clearly that the "First" does not have a quiddity but only an "anity" (anitas)... (546), and that Avicenna... finds that the absolutely necessary being cannot have what every other reality has, namely, a quiddity, a "whatness " distinct from its" whether-ness" or anitas (547-548). Moreover, the first appendix of Judy's article contains a redaction of the 1495 and the 1508 Venice editions of ltletaphyiscs 8.4, which differs chiefly in punctuation from the excellent Van Riet text based on five Latin MSS. A slightly more nuanced position is. found in Etienne Gilson's Elements of Christian Philosoph;y (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1960), p. 127: "... such exactly had been the con- * Delivered before the Society for the Study of Islamic Philosophy and Science meeting in conjunction with The American Catholic Philosophical Association in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on April 12, 1985. 79 80 E. M. MACIEROWSKI clusion of Avicenna: the first has no quiddity (quidditatem non habet)," a claim that cites (305, note 28) secondary literature which one can trace as far back as Father M.-D. RolandGosselin 's edition of the De ente et essentia. What is at stake in this dispute? What if God does not have a quiddity? It would seem that He should be utterly unknowable, if quiddity or essence is a principle of knowledge as well as of being. Such would be plausible consequences of Gilson's and Judy's position. What, on the other hand, if God does have a quiddity? One possible inference, if we happened to have access or insight into the divine quiddity, is that we could have a sort of mystical union with God, perhaps even in this life; or again, one might draw pantheistic conclusions. Verbeke does not follow such paths. His inference points toward a rawrochement between Avicenna's doctrine and that of St. Thomas Aquinas, who maintained not only that God is His own essence (and therefore that it is reasonable to speak of a divine essence) but also that God's essence is no other than His esse, His being or existence. Accordingly, for scholars to have such opposed views about so important a topic even at the hermeneutical level of Avicenna's position points to a serious difficulty. Since Judy does offer texts in support of his interpretation, let us consider the evidence, using his section numbers and Van Riet's pages and lines: Judy, section 4=Van Riet 398.83-399.84 goes thus in Latin: Redibo igitur et dicam quod primum non habet quidditatem, nisi anitatem, quae sit discreta ab ipsa. This text he renders, "The first does not have a quiddity, except an 'anity,' which is distinct from it" (549). The other text in Latin (Judy, section 13=Van Riet 401.31-32) goes thus: Igitur necesse esse non habet quidditatem nisi quod est necesse esse, et haec est anitas, which he renders, "Therefore necessary being does not have a quiddity, but only the fact of its necessary being, and this is DOES GOD HAVE A QUIDDITY ACCORDING TO AVICENNA 81 'anity'" (559). We wonder, however, why nisi should be translated "except" in section 4 and "hut only" in section 13. One would have expected a sed solum or a sed tantum to justify the rendering "but only." Accordingly, the translation should be corrected to read, " Therefore the necessary being has no quiddity except that it is necessary being, and this... (shrink)