As we go to press, the threat of biological or chemical warfare in the Persian Gulf is no longer imminent. Yet the questions raised by the proposed use of “investigational drugs,” without informed consent, to protect U.S. troops remain. The article by Edmund G. Howe and Edward D. Martin presents the arguments that informed the Pentagon's thinking on the subject. It and the commentaries, by George J. Annas and Michael A. Grodin, and Robert J. Levine, explore, among others, issues (...) of informed consent, of distinguishing ‘research’ and ‘treatment,’ and of the nature and extent of the autonomy of military personnel.—B‐JC, HLN. (shrink)

Philosophical writing on the welfare state has taken a defensive turn in recent years, largely in response to two related phenomena: the re-emergence of pro-market ideologies in the larger political culture and the imperiled condition of real world welfare states in a global economy in which national governments have diminishing capacities for shaping the social and economic lives of their citizens. But thanks in part to the tireless advocacy of Philippe Van Parijs, an even more radically redistributive form of public (...) provision than the welfare state has come onto the intellectual agenda—and the political agenda too, at least in Belgium and the Netherlands. Van Parijs proposes that all citizens be accorded an unconditional “basic income grant” as large as is compatible with the need to generate as much wealth as possible for redistribution. By now, this idea has many defenders. It also boasts a genealogy extending back to such writers as Tom Paine, François Huet, Edward Bellamy and G. D. H. Cole. But Van Parijs has become its best-known and most adept philosophical proponent, and this book represents his most sustained effort to date to investigate its normative foundations. (shrink)

This is a book grounded in the real ethical challenges of modern business practice, with a world-religious perspective so necessary in an era of globalization.

The function and method of philosophy.--The nature of religious experience.--Religion and philosophy: naturalism.--Religion and philosophical idealism.--The structure of the universe and the objectivity of values.--The christian conception of god.--The doctrine of the person of christ.--The doctrine of the trinity.

I defend a naturalist theory of moral justification, "Confirmation Theory", from an objection raised by David Copp and Geoffrey Sayre-McCord. Confirmation Theory holds that some moral theory is justified because it is needed in the best empirical explanation of the world. The objection is that moral explanations are "incidental", that even if a moral theory is indispensable, this doesn't establish that any moral standard is justified. I show that the naturalist can concede that moral explanations are incidental and still maintain (...) the attractive elements of Confirmation Theory. (shrink)

The observation that humans are often irrational has become commonplace. This observation has received empirical support from various experiments performed by cognitive scientists that are supposed to show that humans systematically violate principles of probability, rules of logic, and other norms of reasoning. In response to these experiments, philosophers have made creative and appealing arguments that these experiments must be mistaken or misinterpreted because humans must be rational. I examine these arguments for human rationality and show that they fail; cognitive (...) science does play a role in assessing human rationality. ;In Chapter One, I examine three cognitive science experiments in detail and discuss what is at issue in the debate about human rationality. At issue is whether the mistakes humans make are mere mistakes or indicative of systematic divergences from norms of reasoning. Defenders of human rationality say these mistakes are not characteristic of underlying reasoning abilities but are performance errors. Because humans make performance errors, human reasoning ability cannot be read off of behavior, but rather is to be studied by exploring cognitive competence, the underlying ability to reason. ;In Chapter Two, I develop and discuss the notion of cognitive competence. I then consider and reject two arguments that human cognitive competence must match the norms of reasoning. The first argument appeals to simplicity considerations, the second to the supposed common origin of our cognitive competence and our normative standards. In Chapter Three, I turn to a related argument for a view that humans are rational that says cognitive competence is discovered in the same way norms of reasoning are justified: both projects involve reflective equilibrium using as data people's judgments about what counts as good reasoning. ;In Chapter Four, I consider an argument for human rationality that draws on the principle of charity: when translating utterances of a speaker, one should try to interpret her utterances as rational and true. ;In Chapter Five, I consider an argument for human rationality that appeals to evolution. This argument claims that natural selection will select for cognitive mechanisms that produce true beliefs, and that such "truth-tropic" mechanisms are sufficient for being rational. ;My overall conclusion is that while cognitive science does not determine what the normative principles of reasoning are, it is relevant to whether or not human cognitive competence matches these principles; whether or not humans are irrational is, thus, an empirical question. (shrink)

Discussions of research involving vulnerable populations have left the homeless comparatively ignored. Participation by these subjects in drug studies has the potential to be upsetting, inconvenient, or unpleasant. Participation occasionally produces injury, health emergencies, and chronic health problems. Nonetheless, no ethical justification exists for the categorical exclusion of homeless persons from research. The appropriate framework for informed consent for these subjects of pharmaceutical research is not a single event of oral or written consent, but a multi-staged arrangement of disclosure, dialogue, (...) and permission-giving. Payments and other rewards in biomedical research raise issues of whether it is ethical to offer inducements to the homeless in exchange for participation in drug studies. Such inducements can influence desperate persons who are seriously lacking in resources. The key is to strike a balance between a rate of payment high enough that it does not exploit subjects by underpayment and low enough that it does not create an irresistible inducement. This proposal does not underestimate the risks of research, which are often overestimated and need to be appraised in light of the relevant empirical literature. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: In That Case: Medical Ethics in Everyday Practice. By Alastair Campbell and Roger Higgs. Medical Genetics Casebook: A Clinical Introduction to Medical Ethics Systems Theory. By Colleen D. Clements. Cases in Bioethics from the Hastings Center Report. Edited by Carol Levine and Robert M. Veatch. Hastings‐on‐Hudson.

The spread of new information and communications technologies during the past two decades has helped reshape civic associations, political communities, and global relations. In the midst of the information revolution, we find that the speed of this technology-driven change has outpaced our understanding of its social and ethical effects. The moral dimensions of this new technology and its effects on social bonds need to be questioned and scrutinized: Should the Internet be understood as a new form of public space and (...) a source of public good? What are we to make of hackers? Does the Internet strengthen or weaken community? In The Internet in Public Life, essayists confront these and other important questions. This timely and necessary volume makes clear the need for a broader conversation about the effects of the Internet, and the questions raised by these seven essays highlight some of the most pressing issues at hand. (shrink)