In Brazil, the high number of annual gestational losses constitutes a serious public health issue. Gestational loss can cause emotional trauma for mothers and their families due to society's lack of validation and the inadequate and unsympathetic support often provided by healthcare professionals. Thus, the objective of this research was to understand the role of healthcare professionals in cases of gestational loss, identifying their own feelings, those of women and their families, as well as the attitudes and resources used in (...) these cases. A qualitative descriptive exploratory research was conducted using semi-structured interviews with 10 healthcare professionals in Ribeirão Preto: 9 with degrees (5 nurses, 2 psychologists, and 2 doctors) and 1 nursing technician, all women. Three work in hospitals, 1 in domiciliary care, and 6 in private clinics. The research results were grouped into 3 categories: a) Perception of feelings: Professionals recognize the emotional complexity, encompassing their own feelings, those of women, and family reactions. b) Conducts: Despite facing emotional challenges, professionals strive for empathetic and humane care. c) Institutional resources: There is a notable lack of institutional resources, leading professionals to fill this gap with isolated projects, but these are not institutionalized. Therefore, it is essential to enhance the training of healthcare professionals, both theoretically and practically, to better handle emotional challenges and improve their services. Furthermore, greater availability of institutional resources and protocols ensuring empathetic care for mothers and families facing gestational loss is necessary. (shrink)

Resumo: O objetivo deste texto é desenvolver a articulação que Foucault faz entre o diagnóstico do presente e a construção de um pensamento crítico acerca do conceito de autonomia a partir do texto de Kant Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? . Trata-se, portanto, da aproximação de Foucault à herança histórica da Aufklärung analisada por Kant, a partir de uma perspectiva ética para pensar a modernidade. Para tanto, trataremos neste artigo de como Kant descreve o processo da Aufklärung, da relação (...) deste texto de Kant com sua Crítica e, por fim, os desdobramentos destas análises naquilo que Foucault entende ser uma "atitude crítica" da modernidade.Palavras-chave: Foucault - Kant - modernidade.: The aim of this text is to develop the articulation that Foucault makes between the diagnosis of the present and the building of a critical thought about the concept of autonomy from Kant's text Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? . It is, therefore, Foucault's approach to the historical heritage of the Aufklärung analyzed by Kant, from an ethical perspective to think about modernity. To this end, we will discuss in this article how Kant describes the process of Aufklärung, the relation of Kant's text with his Critique and, finally, the ramifications of these analyzes on what Foucault regards as a "critical attitude" of modernity. (shrink)

El año pasado, al terminar de leer Caliban y la bruja. Mujeres, cuerpo y acumulación originaria de Silvia Federici, lloré por todas las feminidades que han sido y que seguimos siendo quemadas en las hogueras de la historia, en las frases cotidianas y en las violencias de género. Esa noche no lograba conciliar el sueño, sentía un calor intenso en las piernas. No sabía qué me estaba pasando. A la mañana siguiente busqué entre mi archivo un texto de Suely Rolnik (...) que habla acerca de los saberes-del-cuerpo. Ella me ayudó a entender las razones de mi desvelo, mi cuerpa me estaba hablando, me estaba recordando que nuestras cuerpas se definen por la capacidad de afectar y ser afectados y que, al definirnos como cuerpas mujeriles, nos han subordinado. (shrink)

Conscience is an idea that has significant currency in liberal democratic societies. Yet contemporary moral philosophical scholarship on conscience is surprisingly sparse. This paper seeks to offer a rigorous philosophical account of the role of conscience in moral life with a view to informing debates about the ethics of conscientious objection in medicine. I argue that conscience is concerned with a commitment to moral integrity and that restrictions on freedom of conscience prevent agents from living a moral life. In section (...) one I argue that conscience is a principle of moral awareness in rational agents, and that it yields an awareness of the personal nature of moral obligation. Conscience also monitors the coherence between an agent’s identity-conferring beliefs and intentions and their practical actions. In section two I consider how human beings are harmed when they are forced to violate their conscience. Restrictions on the exercise of conscience prevent people from living in accord with their own considered understanding of the requirements of morality and undermine one’s capacity for moral agency. This article concludes with a consideration of how a robust theory of conscience can inform our understanding of conscientious objection in medicine. I argue that it is in the interest of individual practitioners and the medical profession generally to foster moral agency among doctors. This provides a prima facie justification for permitting at least some kinds of conscientious objection. (shrink)

In this article we defend the inferential view of scientific models and idealisation. Models are seen as “inferential prostheses” (instruments for surrogative reasoning) construed by means of an idealisation-concretisation process, which we essentially understand as a kind of counterfactual deformation procedure (also analysed in inferential terms). The value of scientific representation is understood in terms not only of the success of the inferential outcomes arrived at with its help, but also of the heuristic power of representation and their capacity to (...) correct and improve our models. This provides us with an argument against Sugden’s account of credible models: the likelihood or realisticness (their “credibility”) is not always a good measure of their acceptability. As opposed to “credibility” we propose the notion of “enlightening”, which is the capacity of giving us understanding in the sense of an inferential ability. (shrink)

Quines són les causes del dèficit filosòfic que arrossega la cultura catalana contemporània? Aquest llibre ofereix un panorama bastant complet —i amarg— de les condicions acadèmiques i extraacadèmiques en què s’ha hagut de conrear als Països Catalans la filosofia, tota la filosofia, centrant-se, això sí, en les aventures personals i col·lectives dels qui han tingut la vel·leïtat de dedicar-se a la lògica. Hi són narrades amb amenitat i lucidesa l’estada de Bertrand Russell a Barcelona, la defenestració d’Eugeni d’Ors, les aberracions (...) docents de Josep Daurella i Rull, la breu i fulgurant trajectòria intel·lectual de Joan Crexells, les peripècies eclesiàstiques de David Garcia Bacca i Miquel Soy, l’exili de Josep Ferrater Mora i la gestació del seu voluminós Diccionario de filosofía, la marginació de Manuel Sacristan, els conflictes de la Facultat de Filosofia de València en els anys 70... El resultat és una història de la filosofia apartada en molts aspectes de la imatge «abstracta» i «idealitzada» que sol oferir la historiografia filosòfica a l’ús. (shrink)

This paper examines the logic of conditional obligation, which originates from the works of Hansson, Lewis, and others. Some weakened forms of transitivity of the betterness relation are studied. These are quasi-transitivity, Suzumura consistency, acyclicity and the interval order condition. The first three do not change the logic. The axiomatic system is the same whether or not they are introduced. This holds true under a rule of interpretation in terms of maximality and strong maximality. The interval order condition gives rise (...) to a new axiom. Depending on the rule of interpretation, this one changes. With the rule of maximality, one obtains the principle known as disjunctive rationality. With the rule of strong maximality, one obtains the Spohn axiom (also known as the principle of rational monotony, or Lewis’ axiom CV). A completeness theorem further substantiates these observations. For interval order, this yields the finite model property and decidability of the calculus. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a prenex form theorem for a version of Independence Friendly logic, a logic with imperfect information. Lifting classical results to such logics turns out not to be straightforward, because independence conditions make the formulas sensitive to signalling phenomena. In particular, nested quantification over the same variable is shown to cause problems. For instance, renaming of bound variables may change the interpretations of a formula, there are only restricted quantifier extraction theorems, and slashed connectives cannot be (...) so easily removed. Thus we correct some claims from Hintikka [8], Caicedo & Krynicki [3] and Hodges [11]. We refine definitions, in particular the notion of equivalence, and sharpen preconditions, allowing us to restore those claims, including the prenex form theorem of Caicedo & Krynicki [3], and, as a side result, we obtain an application to Skolem forms of classical formulas. It is a known fact that a complete calculus for IF-logic is impossible, but with our results we establish several quantifier rules that form a partial calculus of equivalence for a general version of IF-logic reflecting general properties of information flow in games. (shrink)

Replying to Samuel Knafo and Benno Teschke, this article shows how Political Marxism offers powerful conceptual tools to understand modes of production that structure historical processes as fundamentally constituted by exploitative social and political relations. I explain how structure, or rules of reproduction, should be understood as alienated social relations, which are inherent to all class societies. Understanding structure this way leaves ample space for – and makes inevitable – the consideration of agency.

The aim of this article is to promote an analysis of the intercultural experience carried out through the exchange of letters with children from the city of Ninomiya, Kanagawa Province – Japan, with children from the Municipal Education Network of the Veranópolis, Rio Grande do Sul – Brazil. The exchanges take place annually through the Post and Telegraph service in Brazil and Japan, between students from the 3rd to 9th years of this network. Japanese children write to Veranians and vice (...) versa. They tell facts about their routine, their city, peculiar aspects of their daily lives, including photos and geographic and cultural characteristics specific to each local space. This experience invites us to expand our gaze on the importance of thematizing, in the educational process, sociocultural aspects of different peoples, social groups, customs and ways of being and living together. We challenge ourselves to reflect on how this practice of exchanging letters, between children from two very different countries, both socially and culturally, manages to raise awareness about issues related to interculturality as a field of debate about identity processes that constitute an environment. Furthermore, it allows us to analyze issues related to the ease of writing and the symbology used to describe aspects related to the daily life of each child, as well as the subjectivity in each message in the exchange of letters. The reciprocity in exchanges, the care with the details present in each report, the richness that makes up the writing and how everyday life presents itself with similarities and differences in the life of each student, whether here or in Japan, are essential components in the construction of this analysis. Keywords: Local history. Interculturality. Education. Global citizenship. (shrink)

En conmemoración de las luchas femeninas y queer por la libertad y la dignidad de todas las formas de vida, el 30 marzo de 2022 el programa de Filosofía de la Universidad del Quindío realizó el evento Cuestiones en torno a la escritura, la política y la Universidad. Un diálogo queer y feminista. Las participaciones consistieron en reflexiones sobre la escritura feminista en la academia, los feminismos y su lugar en la política electoral, las escrituras cuir y el ciberfeminismo. Del (...) evento surgió la propuesta de este dossier que desde esas miradas queer y feministas propone reflexiones situadas sobre la escritura, la política y la Universidad como espacios marcados por tensiones de género. Los artículos que componen el número avanzan en diagnósticos, críticas y propuestas alternativas a las relaciones de género hegemónicas que definen la naturaleza de los espacios nombrados. Así pues, este número se suma a los intentos de transformación de esos espacios o de la producción de unos nuevos, donde la vida en común, los saberes y su transmisión pueda reducir y quizá abolir las formas de exclusión que se entrelazan y se prolongan en el tiempo. En esta edición de la revista Disertaciones se incluyen artículos resultado del encuentro y otras colaboraciones adicionadas por vía de la convocatoria del monográfico. (shrink)

The Christian evaluation of homosexuality is based primarily on a model which can view homosexuality only as aberrational. From a Christian theological point of view this model articulates an inadequate vision of the dignity of human being. In its deliberations on the process of church, Vatican Council II implicitly developed a relational‐progressive model for understanding the salvific engagement of the complete gift of Godlife and creation. This model, in turn, provides a new basis for understanding human dignity and evaluating homosexuality. (...) Viewed from this perspective homosexuality is able to be considered a sacramental embodiment of Godlife. (shrink)

‘Epistemic’ arguments for conservatism typically claim that given the limits of human reason, we are better off accepting some particular social practice or institution rather than trying to consciously improve it. I critically examine and defend here one such argument, claiming that there are some domains of social life in which, given the limits of our knowledge and the complexity of the social world, we ought to defer to those institutions that have robustly endured in a wide variety of circumstances (...) in the past while not being correlated with intolerable outcomes. These are domains of social life in which our ignorance of optimal institutions is radical, and there is uncertainty about the costs of error. This is an argument for the preservation of particular institutions, not particular policies or outcomes, and it specifically identifies these with the institutions that John Rawls called ‘the basic structure of society.’ The argument further implies that to the extent that there is any reason to change these institutions, changes should be calculated as far as possible to increase their ‘epistemic power.’. (shrink)

Several ethicists have defended the use of responsibility-based criteria in healthcare rationing. Yet in this article we outline two challenges to the implementation of responsibility-based healthcare rationing policies. These two challenges are, namely, that responsibility for past behavior can diminish as an agent changes, and that blame can come apart from responsibility. These challenges suggest that it is more difficult to hold someone responsible for health related actions than proponents of responsibility-sensitive healthcare policies suggest. We close by discussing public health (...) policies that could function as an alternative to contentious, responsibility-sensitive rationing policies. (shrink)

The past decade has seen a burgeoning of scholarly interest in conscientious objection in health care. Specifically, several commentators have discussed the implications that conscientious objection has for the delivery of timely, efficient, and nondiscriminatory medical care. In this paper, I discuss the main argument put forward by the most prominent critics of conscientious objection—what I call the Professional Duty Argument or PDA. According to proponents of PDA, doctors should place patients’ well-being and rights at the center of their professional (...) practice. Doctors should be prepared to set their personal moral or religious beliefs aside where these beliefs conflict with what is legal and considered good medical practice by relevant professional associations. Conscientious objection, on this account, should be heavily restricted, if even allowed at all. I discuss two powerful objections against PDA. The first objection, which I call the fallibility objection, notes that law and professional codes of conduct are fallible guides for ethical conduct and that conscientious objection has in the past and continues today to provide a check on aberrations in law and professional convention. The second, which I call the professional discretion objection, states that restrictions on conscientious objection undermine one of the cornerstones of good medical practice, namely, a practitioner’s right to independent professional judgment. I argue that these two objections give us reason to retain conscience clauses in professional codes of conduct. (shrink)

It is shown that axiomatic extensions of intuitionistic propositional calculus defining univocally new connectives, including those proposed by Gabbay, are strongly complete with respect to valuations in Heyting algebras with additional operations. In all cases, the double negation of such a connective is equivalent to a formula of intuitionistic calculus. Thus, under the excluded third law it collapses to a classical formula, showing that this condition in Gabbay's definition is redundant. Moreover, such connectives can not be interpreted in all Heyting (...) algebras, unless they are already equivalent to a formula of intuitionistic calculus. These facts relativize to connectives over intermediate logics. In particular, the intermediate logic with values in the chain of length n may be "completed" conservatively by adding a single unary connective, so that the expanded system does not allow further axiomatic extensions by new connectives. (shrink)

An extensions by new axioms and rules of an algebraizable logic in the sense of Blok and Pigozzi is not necessarily algebraizable if it involves new connective symbols, or it may be algebraizable in an essentially different way than the original logic. However, extension whose axioms and rules define implicitly the new connectives are algebraizable, via the same equivalence formulas and defining equations of the original logic, by enriched algebras of its equivalente quasivariety semantics. For certain strongly algebraizable logics, all (...) connectives defined implicitly by axiomatic extensions of the logic are explicitly definable. (shrink)

Le Pere Xavier Tilliette est l'un des plus grands historiens contemporains de la philosophie. Il est l'auteur d'une monumentale etude en deux volumes sur Schelling... qui il avait d'ailleurs consacre plusieurs autres ouvrages. Il a egalement ecrit d'excellents livres sur d'autres grandes figures de la philosophie occidentale notamment Fichte, Merleau-Ponty, Lequier. Il est aussi et surtout le representant le plus connu d'un genre unique de la philosophie de la religion, celui qui traite des grands themes de la theologie chretienne (...) selon leurs dimensions proprement philosophiques. Rappelons simplement plusieurs travaux tres novateurs sur le Christ et la philosophie, mais aussi sur la philosophie et l'Eglise ou encore la philosophie et l'Eucharistie. Toutefois, Xavier Tilliette n'est pas seulement philosophe, il est aussi un grand erudit de l'histoire litteraire francaise, notamment de l'oeuvre de Paul Claudel. Apres deux Festschrift anterieures parues respectivement en Allemagne et en Italie, ce troisieme recueil publie en l'honneur du Pere Tilliette est edite en Belgique. Il contient trente contributions, plus de la moitie consacrees... l'histoire de la philosophie, avec un nombre eleve de textes sur Schelling. Les autres etudes, tres variees, tres originales, relevent de la philosophie de la religion, de la theologie philosophique et de l'histoire de la litterature. Ces travaux dont les auteurs, en provenance de huit pays et de trois continents, vont de jeunes erudits... peine trentenaires jusqu'aux contemporains de l'illustre jesuite, sont rediges en Francais, en Italien, en Allemand et en Anglais. Ils manifestent et illustrent la fecondite de l'oeuvre de ce disciple fervent des Peres de Lubac et Danielou, son rayonnement extraordinaire, les richesses multivalentes de ses deux-mille publications. (shrink)

This article was written based on Michel Foucault’s formulations in the course Abnormals (1975) about the dimension of human monstrosity. In its general lines, Foucault not only provides us with an overview of the slow formation of the “indefinite and confused family” of the abnormal, but also deals with the important participation of the figure of the human monster in its composition. Thus, taking the theme of the human monster as the guiding thread of this text, we intend to launch (...) ourselves into some questions about the technologies of knowledge and strategies of power that made its existence possible, namely: How the dimension of monstrosity came to be linked to the panorama of sexuality? How did the dispositif of sexuality get involved in the proliferation of the pale figures of human monsters? And, in a final step, we ask ourselves about the possibilities of political resistance from the perspective of dissident bodies, insofar as they face the violent universalism of determinations based on true sex. (shrink)

Many ethicists argue that we should respect persons when we distribute resources. Yet it is unclear what this means in practice. For some, the idea of respect for persons is synonymous with the idea of respect for autonomy. Yet a principle of respect for autonomy provides limited guidance for how we should distribute scarce medical interventions. In this article, however, I sketch an alternative conception of respect for persons—one that is based on an ethic of mutual accountability. I draw in (...) particular upon Stephen Darwall’s writings on respect and the second-person standpoint. I consider the implications of this conception of respect for the distribution of scarce, lifesaving healthcare resources. A second-personal account of respect rules out aggregative approaches to distribution, and instead requires that we give individual consideration to the claims that persons in need make on the resources in our control. The principles that we use to govern our allocation of resources, furthermore, should be principles that are acceptable to all reasonable agents. Building on this insight, the final section of this paper considers how a principle of need can be used as a means to make decisions about the allocation of lifesaving resources. -/- . (shrink)

This paper tackles an open problem posed by Åqvist. It is the problem of whether his dyadic deontic systemsEandFare complete with respect to their intended Hanssonian preference-based semantics. It is known that there are two different ways of interpreting what it means for a world to be best or top-ranked among alternatives. This can be understood as saying that it is optimal among them, or maximal among them. First, it is established that, under either the maximality rule or the optimality (...) rule,Eis sound and complete with respect to the class of all preference models, the class of those in which the betterness relation is reflexive, and the class of those in which it is total. Next, an analogous result is shown to hold forF. That is, it is established that, under either rule,Fis sound and complete with respect to the class of preference models in which the betterness relation is limited, the class of those in which it is limited and reflexive, and the class of those in which it is limited and total. (shrink)

INTELIGENCIA Y LOGOS es el segundo volumen de la trilogía que sobre el tema general de LA INTELECCION HUMANA publica el filósofo XAVIER ZUBIRI (San Sebastián, 1898). Este volumen es continuación del primero (INTELIGENCIA SENTIENTE) y se completa con el tercero y último, INTELIGENCIA Y RAZÓN. La obra completa analiza, entre otros muchos, los temas y problemas fundamentales de la disciplina filosófica conocida con los nombres de Teoría del conocimiento, Epistemología y Crítica, replanteando en una dimensión hasta ahora inédita (...) cuestiones tales como las de la intelección, el juicio, el conocimiento, la razón, el saber, la comprensión, la verdad, la ciencia, etc. No hay duda de que el enfoque que Zubiri da a estas cuestiones es profundamente original. Desde los tiempos de Parménides la filosofía ha solido resolver el problema de las relaciones entre la inteligencia y la realidad en el punto que constituye el tema central de este volumen, el «logos», cuya expresión más clásica es el «juicio». Zubiri se opone frontalmente a esta tradición, que según él conduce a un logicismo formalista que desvirtúa el papel de la inteligencia e impide el acceso a la realidad. Afirmar que el logos es la estructura fundamental de la intelección supone logificar la inteligencia, es decir, hacer de ella una facultad puramente formal y conceptiva. El resultado de esto es el conceptismo y el idealismo, los males seculares de la filosofía. Frente a esto, Zubiri afirma la preeminencia de la intelección sobre el logos. La inteligencia, como quedó expuesto en el volumen anterior, meramente actualiza las cosas en tanto que «reales». El logos es un modo ulterior de la intelección que permite expresar lo que esas cosas reales son «en realidad». El desarrollo de esta idea central constituye el argumento del presente libro. (shrink)

Simondon situou o conjunto de seus trabalhos sob o signo de uma confrontação entre a filosofia e as ciências humanas. Partindo da constatação de que as ciências humanas de sua época são insuficientemente unificadas e que elas perdem a realidade do homem concreto e completo, ele quer propor uma filosofia da individuação humana que possa renovar os saberes sobre o homem. Esta filosofia da individuação se apresenta como um esforço para casar estreitamente duas dimensões da realidade humana que são habitualmente (...) tratadas separadamente: as formas de organização social de um lado, os modos de confrontação à matéria do outro. Em suma, o social e o técnico. Na capacidade de pensar conjuntamente estas duas dimensões, do social e do técnico, lança-se, segundo Simondon, a possibilidade de propor um novo humanismo à altura dos desafios contemporâneos. (shrink)

The political year of 1977 was essentially marked by the organizing of an anticipated parliamentary election and by the forming of a new government coalition. The aftermath of these elections and the reactions to the forming of the Tindemans Vcoalition cabinet were the main factors which conditioned the evolution of partie in the course of that year.

This text rebukes and amplifies a study published under the title "L'auguste vieillard à la Constituante : un révélateur d'idéologie révolutionnaire," published in "Sedes Sapientiae," volume 109, September 2009.

In Racial Prescriptions, Jonathan Xavier Inda offers a critical and timely analysis of the making of BiDil, the first (and only) drug that was marketed exclusively to African Americans. Sibille Merz speaks to him about the re-articulation of racial politics under neoliberalism, the legacies of scientific racism and the molecularization of biopolitics in the genomic age.

Xavier Landes | : In this article, consensus, defined as the consent of all citizens, is argued to be the first best for part of the liberal tradition on political legitimacy. Consensus would be the foundation of the liberal society that, when out of reach, needs to be approximated through, for instance, voting. I build on the timid attempts in political theory at using the theorem of the second best as a tool to settle difficult decision making in applied (...) political theory. More precisely, I defend the view that consensus would be the first best for part of the liberal tradition on political legitimacy. Furthermore, I illustrate how moral, factual, disagreements may create second-best problems, especially in terms of stability. Finally, I spell out some reasons why such problems directly affect a liberal order, on pragmatic grounds. The final purpose is to contribute to the literatures on legitimacy and on the application of the theorem of the second best outside economics. The key idea is to stress that much more work has to be done for “importing” the theorem of the second best into political theory. | : Dans cet article, le consensus, défini comme le consentement de tous les citoyens, est présenté comme remplissant la fonction d’optimum de premier rang [first best] pour une partie de la tradition libérale quant à la légitimité politique. Le consensus fonderait la société libérale qui, lorsque hors d’atteinte, nécessiterait d’être approximer au travers, par exemple, du vote. Je m’appuie sur les timides tentatives en théorie politique d’utiliser le théorème de l’optimum de second rang [second best] comme outil pour résoudre des prises de décision difficiles en théorie politique appliquée. Plus précisément, je défends l’idée que le consensus serait l’optimum de premier rang pour une partie de la tradition libérale quant à la légitimité politique. De plus, j’illustre comment les désaccords moraux, factuels peuvent créer des problèmes d’optimum de second rang, en particulier en termes de stabilité. Enfin, j’expose quelques raisons pour lesquelles de tels problèmes affectent directement un ordre libéral, d’un point de vue pragmatique. Le but final est de contribuer aux littératures sur la légitimité et sur l’application du théorème d’optimum de second rang à l’extérieur des sciences économiques. L’idée principale est de souligner qu’il reste beaucoup de travail afin d’« importer » le théorème d’optimum de second rang en théorie politique. (shrink)

Thomas Riisfeldt’s essay1 is a valuable contribution to the literature on palliative sedation, appropriately titrated administration of opioids (ATAOs) and euthanasia. In this response, I will not deal with the author’s empirical claim about the relationship between opioid use, palliative sedation and survival time. Rather, I will briefly critique the author’s discussion of doctrine of double effect (DDE) and its application to palliative sedation and opioid use at the end of life. That is, I will focus on the ethical claims (...) made by the author. Riisfeldt argues that DDE is incompatible with both Kantian deontology and Millian consequentialism. Yet, I will argue that the DDE is coherent and defensible when interpreted from the perspective of the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, the theorist who first proposed the doctrine. I will also argue that Riisfeldt mischaracterises ATAOs and palliative sedation as procedures that hasten death as a means to relieve pain. While death may indeed be hastened by ATAOs and palliative sedation, it is not at all clear that clinicians intend to hasten death as a means to relieve pain. Indeed, clinical guidelines explicitly prohibit the intentional hastening of death. Riisfeldt provides a brief summary of the DDE. He describes DDE as a ‘strange hybrid of four principles’. He lists the four criteria that must be met for an act with a good and a bad effect to be permissible. These criteria are the ‘intention and means criteria’ and the ‘intrinsic and proportionality criteria’ (p.127). The author uses Kant and Mill as lens through which to highlight a tension between the intrinsic and proportionality criteria of DDE. The author claims that ‘the intrinsic criterion is derived from deontology, the predominant form of which is championed by Kant’, and that ‘the proportionality criterion is derived from consequentialism, the predominant form of …. (shrink)

Schuklenk and Smalling argue that it is practically impossible for civic institutions to meet the conditions necessary to ensure that conscientious objection does not conflict with the core principles of liberal democracies. In this response, I propose an alternative definition of conscience to that offered by Schuklenk and Smalling. I discuss what I call the ‘traditional’ notion of conscience, and contrast this with the existentialist conception of conscience (which I take to be a close cousin of the view targeted by (...) Schuklenk and Smalling). I argue that the traditional notion, grounded in an objective moral order, avoids the criticisms advanced by Schuklenk and Smalling; the existentialist conception, in contrast, does not. I conclude by discussing the benefits and risks of a ‘restricted view’ of respect for conscience. (shrink)

Pourquoi parle-t-on si facilement de l'âme d'un violon, d'une poutre, d'un canon et avec plus d'embarras, de l'âme humaine? Le mot "âme" a des résonances qui pour beaucoup paraissent suspectes. Nombre de nos contemporains pensent ou préfèrent se passer de la notion d'âme qu'ils jugent désuète, mythique ou trop chargée de religieux. Et s'il y avait une relation étroite entre le refoulement du religieux et celui de l'âme? se demande Xavier Lacroix. De même que le religieux est porteur d'une (...) signification qui lui est propre, de même la notion d'âme est-elle porteuse d'une signification qui va plus loin que les notions modernes par lesquelles on croit la remplacer. En vérité, le terme d'âme est irremplaçable. Nous n'en avons pas fini avec lui, qui implique la raison et la foi, le bon sens et la Révélation. (shrink)