In this paper, we contend that the “Smith case” in Gettier’s attempt to refute the justified true belief (JTB) account of knowledge does not work. This is because the said case fails to satisfy the truth condition, and thus is not a case of JTB at all. We demonstrate this claim using the framework of Donnellan’s distinction between the referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions. Accordingly, the truth value of Smith’s proposition “The man who will get the job has (...) ten coins in his pocket” partly depends on how Smith uses the definite description “the man who will get the job” when he utters the proposition. Since, upon uttering the proposition, Smith has in mind a particular individual, namely Jones, and not just whoever will fit the attribute specified in the definite description, Smith uses the definite description referentially. And so when it turns out that it is Smith who eventually gets the job, the definite description fails to refer to Jones as intended by Smith, thereby making Smith’s proposition false. To think that Smith’s proposition is still true, in this regard, is to use the definite description attributively—that it is about whoever will fit the definite description. Apparently, when Gettier claims that Smith’s proposition is still true, to demonstrate that it is a case of JTB, he, in effect, imposes his attributive understanding of Smith’s usage of the definite description on Smith’s own epistemic situation. (shrink)

In this book, Kuhse and Singer consider the moral problems which arise in decisions about the treatment or non-treatment of severely handicapped newborns. Their main conclusion is that some of these infants should be killed.

Proceedings of the eighth trans-disciplinary symposium on philosophy and medicine held at Farmington, Connecticut, November 9-11,1978.

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This is the first book to offer the best essays, articles, and speeches on ethics and intelligence that demonstrate the complex moral dilemmas in intelligence collection, analysis, and operations. Some are recently declassified and never before published, and all are written by authors whose backgrounds are as varied as their insights, including Robert M. Gates, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; John P. Langan, the Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Professor of Catholic Social Thought at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, (...) Georgetown University; and Loch K. Johnson, Regents Professor of Political Science at the University of Georgia and recipient of the Owens Award for contributions to the understanding of U.S. intelligence activities. Creating the foundation for the study of ethics and intelligence by filling in the gap between warfare and philosophy, this is a valuable collection of literature for building an ethical code that is not dependent on any specific agency, department, or country. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Health Care Ethics: Theological Foundations, Contemporary Issues, and Controversial Cases, revised edition by Michael R. Panicola, David M. Belde, John Paul Slosar, and Mark F. Repenshek, and: On Moral Medicine: Theological Perspectives in Medical Ethics, third edition ed. by M. Therese Lysaught and Joseph J. Kotva Jr. with Stephen E. Lammers and Allen VerheyLindsey EsbensenReview of Health Care Ethics: Theological Foundations, Contemporary Issues, and Controversial Cases, revised (...) edition MICHAEL R. PANICOLA, DAVID M. BELDE, JOHN PAUL SLOSAR, AND MARK F. REPENSHEK Winona, MN: Anselm Academic, 2011. 438 pp. $37.95Review of On Moral Medicine: Theological Perspectives in Medical Ethics, third edition EDITED BY M. THERESE LYSAUGHT AND JOSEPH J. KOTVA JR. WITH STEPHEN E. LAMMERS AND ALLEN VERHEY Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012. 1180 pp. $61.55Health Care Ethics and On Moral Medicine are excellent resources for those studying and teaching in the field of medical ethics. Each text on its own provides a very good initial evaluation of contemporary conversations in health care ethics. Together they provide a thorough foundation for the study of health care ethics that encourages further exploration of topics in the field. They both provide an excellent overview for undergraduate students as well as anyone interested in the field of medical morality.Health Care Ethics is especially helpful for those entering the field of ethics in general and the more particular realm of medical morality. User-friendly, [End Page 211] the book is accessible to beginners while also being relevant to those already well-versed in medical ethics. The book provides case studies culled from the experiences of the authors throughout their careers in the practice of medical ethics. Perhaps even more useful, however, are the other exercises in which readers are given the opportunity to actively engage the text in order to discover and more fully articulate their own moral stance. Although Health Care Ethics approaches the topic from a theological perspective, using scriptural passages as well as broader religious themes and contexts, the book is accessible to those outside of the religious arena as well.The first three chapters lay the framework for general theological and ethical inquiry while the later chapters discuss more specific topics in applied health care ethics. The opening chapters by Michael Panicola are thought-provoking, especially since they encourage readers to participate in exercises to determine how they would respond to particular scenarios in their personal decision making. For example, after laying out the classic ethical theories, readers are asked to take a “quiz” by responding to multiple-choice questions to determine how they would respond to various ethical situations. The exercise demonstrates that moral discernment that relies on one ethical theory alone or one single approach to ethics is too narrow and confining for authentic dialogue in ethics. Another exercise calls upon readers to examine their fundamental bases for personal decision making by asking them to create a list of what they think are the ten things that constitute human flourishing and then narrow that list down to the top two. In addition to being engaging, these exercises help readers establish their personal moral stance by asking them to appropriate foundational norms in the process of moral discernment to the case studies throughout the book. They also help readers apply these norms to the specific topics in health care ethics presented in the later chapters.The authors of Health Care Ethics clearly identify human flourishing as the center and goal for all ethical inquiry. Demonstrating that “human flourishing” has different connotations for different people, they also argue that certain norms can be agreed upon to establish a framework for all conversations regarding moral decision making in health care. They especially emphasize a concern for the optimization of human flourishing in final chapters of the text. Chapters 4–12 provide detailed examinations of current topics in medical ethics. Each chapter includes case studies that raise questions concerning social ethics as well as health care morality, employing sources from law, sociology, philosophy, and theology. Each case underscores the complexity of moral decision making in health care ethics as well as the point that there is no one, pure approach to medical ethics that... (shrink)

Essays that put noted political thinkers of the past—including Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Wollstonecraft, Marx, and Confucius—in dialogue with current environmental political theory. Contemporary environmental political theory considers the implications of the environmental crisis for such political concepts as rights, citizenship, justice, democracy, the state, race, class, and gender. As the field has matured, scholars have begun to explore connections between Green Theory and such canonical political thinkers as Plato, Machiavelli, Locke, and Marx. The essays in this volume put important figures (...) from the political theory canon in dialogue with current environmental political theory. It is the first comprehensive volume to bring the insights of Green Theory to bear in reinterpreting these canonical theorists. Individual essays cover such classical figures in Western thought as Aristotle, Hume, Rousseau, Mill, and Burke, but they also depart from the traditional canon to consider Mary Wollstonecraft, W. E. B. Du Bois, Hannah Arendt, and Confucius. Engaging and accessible, the essays also offer original and innovative interpretations that often challenge standard readings of these thinkers. In examining and explicating how these great thinkers of the past viewed the natural world and our relationship with nature, the essays also illuminate our current environmental predicament. Essays on Plato • Aristotle • Niccolò Machiavelli • Thomas Hobbes • John Locke • David Hume • Jean-Jacques Rousseau • Edmund Burke • Mary Wollstonecraft • John Stuart Mill • Karl Marx • W. E. B. Du Bois • Martin Heidegger • Hannah Arendt • Confucius Contributors Sheryl D. Breen, W. Scott Cameron, Peter F. Cannavò, Joel Jay Kassiola, Joseph H. Lane Jr. Timothy W. Luke, John M. Meyer, Özgüç Orhan, Barbara K. Seeber, Francisco Seijo, Kimberly K. Smith, Piers H. G. Stephens, Zev Trachtenberg, Andrew Valls, Harlan Wilson. (shrink)

This book is about what makes law possible. A stranger to contemporary legal practice might think such a book unnecessary, but the eight authors of this book share the view that what makes law possible is under siege today. The authors also share the hope that by exploring how law is a humanistic practice that involves whole persons, the siege will be reversed. The pathbreaking work of University of Michigan Law professor Joseph Vining provides the authors' focus for their (...) varied analyses of how law works not through force but, instead, through affinity.Vining's four books and other writings, spanning four decades, reveal the hidden connections by which men and women freely create and sustain a world of meaning through the phenomena we associate with law. Drawing on legal philosophy, theology, musicology, and other humanistic disciplines, the authors join Vining in discovering how law is, as Vining has written, “evidence of view and belief far stronger than academic statement or introspection can provide.” Law as Vining and the other authors reveal it is evidence of our better selves, not of the totalizing and brutalizing selves humans are capable of becoming, sometimes even under cover of law.In addition to the three editors, the book's authors are Joseph Vining, Rev. John McCausland, Hon. John T. Noonan, Jr., Steven Smith, and James Boyd White.Lawyers and all who care about law, the human future, and what human freedom can do to connect person to person as valued will find much to ponder in the chapters of this book. By avoiding jargon and the cliché, the authors follow Vining's lead in illuminating the deep springs of law's vitality and authority. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 517 she does on these issues; this is hardly the case. And lastly she fails to discern that some feminist christology does not spring from a love for Jesus and what he has done through his cross and resurrection; rather, Jesus is merely used (and thus abused) to further a theological and political agenda. [Men obviously are not immune from this either.] Despite my disagreements with some (...) of Johnson's arguments and conclusions, and despite my disappointment at the way she addresses the feminist issues, I found this hook to he a basically reliable and clear summary of the christology of the last forty years. Whether it has all been true development, as Johnson maintains, is a debatable question. Nonetheless, this book does elaborate the contemporary issues and possible answers that confront christology today, and for this makes it a book well worth reading. Mother of God Community Washington. D.C. THOMAS WEINANDY, O.F.M. Cap. The Philosophical Theology of John Duns Scotus. By ALLAN B. WOLTER, O.F.M. Ed. Marilyn McCord Adams. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990. Pp. ix+ 356. $47.50. Duns Scotus was a brilliant light that flashed a brief time across the medieval sky hut was destined ultimately to he outshone by other luminaries immediately preceding him (Aquinas) and following him (Ockham). Perhaps no individual in the past half century has done more to illuminate the Subtle Doctor's thought and times than Allan B. Wolter, O.F.M. Both his editing and his translating of primary sources as well as his detailed readings and expositions of Scotus's theories have put medieval scholars in his debt. The present volume is a collection of thirteen essays on particular aspects of Scotus's work, preceded by an introduction. Ten of the essays have been previously published in other sources ranging from.the late 1940s to the present. But as editor Marilyn McCord Adams points out in her forward, many of these can be found only with difficulty in often inaccessible journals and books. Thus the value of this single volume. The essays are grouped under three headings: metaphysics and epistemology, action theory and ethics, and philosophical theology. As is often true with any volume spanning a number of topics and years, the quality of exposition and analysis is uneven. Obviously, in a limited space, I cannot hope to treat all subjects in a volume as comprehensive 518 BOOK REVIEWS as Wolter's. Permit me, however, to begin by making some general comments and then to narrow my remarks to one particular issue. Wolter's introduction to the volume is as clear and concise an overview of Scotus's ideas as one is likely to find anywhere in the literature. In general, the essays in the first part of the book on matters meta· physical and epistemological are quite solid. Here we find explicated many of the concepts which have become identified with Scotus: the formal distinction, univocity of being, the common nature and the hraecceity that constitutes distinct individuals. Wolter does justice to the subtlety and brilliance of Scotus's thinking and allows readers both old and new to Scotus to acknowledge him as a metaphysician for the ages. The author is particularly adept at explicating with helpful analogies some of the Subtle Doctor's most difficult concepts. I benefitted from his thought-provoking comparison between the formal distinction and a spotlight on a stage which can illuminate different and distinguishable aspects of the same reality. The next section on action rtheory and ethics draws in part on Wolter's work which culminated in the 1986 publication of Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality. Wolter has been in the forefront of those who urge that Scotus's description of an innate affection for justice in the will is crucial in understanding the freedom Scotus thought proper to humans. What remains unclear to me is how this strand in Scotus's writing relates to others which clearly imply a libertarian view of free• dom emphasizing the will's utter self-determination. The problem I see is this: if the will truly is self-determining, then an innate affectio justitiae seems to... (shrink)

Recent research in moral psychology highlights the role of emotion and intuition in moral judgment. In the wake of these findings, the role and significance of moral reasoning remain uncertain. In this article, we distinguish among different kinds of moral reasoning and review evidence suggesting that at least some kinds of moral reasoning play significant roles in moral judgment, including roles in abandoning moral intuitions in the absence of justifying reasons, applying both deontological and utilitarian moral principles, and counteracting automatic (...) tendencies toward bias that would otherwise dominate behavior. We argue that little is known about the psychology of moral reasoning and that it may yet prove to be a potent social force. (shrink)

This paper describes one possible origin point for fraudulent behavior within the American pharmaceutical industry. We argue that during the late nineteenth century therapeutic reformers sought to promote both laboratory science and increasingly systematized forms of clinical experiment as a new basis for therapeutic knowledge. This process was intertwined with a transformation in the ethical framework in which medical science took place, one in which monopoly status was replaced by clinical utility as the primary arbiter of pharmaceutical legitimacy. This new (...) framework fundamentally altered the set of epistemic virtues—a phrase we draw from the philosophical field of virtue epistemology—considered necessary to conduct reliable scientific inquiry regarding drugs. In doing so, it also made possible new forms of fraud in which newly emergent epistemic virtues were violated. To make this argument, we focus on the efforts of Francis E. Stewart and George S. Davis of Parke, Davis & Company. Therapeutic reformers within the pharmaceutical industry, such as Stewart and Davis, were an important part of the broader normative and epistemic transformation we describe in that they sought to promote laboratory science and systematized clinical trials toward the twin goals of improving pharmaceutical science and promoting their own commercial interests. Yet, as we suggest, Parke, Davis & Company also serves as an example of a company that violated the very norms that Stewart and Davis helped introduce. We thus seek to describe one possible origin point for the widespread fraudulent practices that now characterize the pharmaceutical industry. We also seek to describe an origin point for why we conceptualize such practices as fraudulent in the first place. (shrink)

This paper develops analogies concerning the evolution of dissipative structures in nonequilibrium thermodynamics to interpret irrational human behavior in which one finds a lack of correspondence between the invested means and the consequences observed. In an attempt to positively explain the process of cooperation between the free human person and interacting God, I use philosophical categories of Whitehead's process philosophy in an aesthetic model that opposes composition and performance in a musical symphony. Certainly, the essence of human freedom can be (...) expressed in neither thermodynamical nor aesthetic terms. The models proposed can, however, facilitate our understanding of the mutual relations between God's action in the world and the drama of human free choice of moral evil. (shrink)

Interpreting John Paul II's message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in the context of the new scientific discoveries concerning the mitochondrial DNA, one can argue that the human species emerged in Africa some 200,000 years ago. The very problem of the emergence of the human soul in the process of biological evolution represents a subject outside the cognitive competence of science. Attempts can be undertaken to explain this issue in the epistemological perspective of philosophy and theology. In traditional versions (...) of evolutionary theism, God* s interaction in nature was interpreted in causal categories when deterministic dependences were stressed in the process of evolutionary growth. In new proposals, God's presence in an evolving nature has been explained in categories of potentialities and propensities built by God into an evolving Nature. Consequently, in this approach God could be conceived not as a Paleyan designer but rather as a composer unfolding the possibilities hidden in His creation. The future of the evolutionary process depends not only on cosmic physical determinants; it depends to a large extent on the quality of cooperation of human actions with the influence of the Divine Creator. Accordingly, the shape of human culture, as well as the state of moral consciousness of Homo sapiens, should be taken into consideration to discuss the future evolution of the human species. /// Interpretando a mensagem do Papa João Paulo II à Academia Pontifícia das Ciências no contexto das novas descobertas científicas referentes ao DNA mitocondrial, o autor do artigo considera ser possível defender que a espécie humana surgiu em África há cerca de 200 000 anos. Mas o problema da emergência da alma humana no contexto do processo da evolução biológica representa um assunto que está fora da competência cognitiva da ciência. Contudo é possível realizar tentativas no sentido de explicar esta questão na perspectiva epistemológica da filosofia e da teologia. Nas versões tradicionais do teísmo evolutivo, a interacção de Deus com a natureza era interpretada segundo categorias causais quando as dependências deterministicas eram sublinhadas no processo do desenvolvimento evolutivo. No contexto de novas propostas interpretativas, a presença de Deus na ordem evolutiva tem sido explicada em termos das potencialidades e das propensidades induzidas por Deus na Natureza em evolução. Consequentemente, segundo esta abordagem Deus poderia ser concebido não como sábio projectista de que fala William Paley, mas antes como um compositor fazendo vir ao de cima as possibilidades escondidas na sua própria criação. O futuro do processo evolutivo depende não apenas das determinantes físicas do cosmos; ele depende em larga medida da qualidade da cooperação das acções humanas com a influência do Criador. Neste sentido, o artigo defende que a forma da cultura humana, bem como o estado da consciência moral do homo sapiens deve ser tido em consideração em ordem a se poder discutir a evolução futura da espécie humana. (shrink)