: This response to the preceding five articles highlights the stubborn persistence of the philosophical perplexities surrounding commodification in the realm of medicine and biotechnology.

Clough's theological account of animals critiques the familiar negative identification of animals as not-human. Instead, Clough highlights both the distinctive particularity of each animal as created by God and the shared fleshly creatureliness of human and nonhuman animals. He encourages Christians to recognize Jesus Christ as God enfleshed more than divinely human, and consequently to care for nonhuman animals as those who share with human animals in the redemption of all flesh. This move risks downplaying the possibilities for creaturely specific (...) forms of redemption; limiting the cosmic efficacy of salvation in Christ; and losing the particularity of Christ's divine and human natures. Another, possibly less risky, direction to take Clough's insights about creatureliness and well-formed theological ethics might attend to the perverse ways that humans assess the worthiness of human and nonhuman animals by substituting particularities of use and abuse for the particularities of creation and salvation. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 3, June 2020, Page 217-221.

Fog in August is a German film based on Robert Domes' historical novel of the same name. The film provides a fictionalized account of the institutionalization and eventual killing of children and adults labelled as a burden on the State and unworthy of life. On one level, this is a story of good versus evil, where innocent patients are manipulated by callous doctors and nurses. At a deeper level, however, it is possible to read the characters as more complex and (...) such a reading gives an insight into the paradox of how a genocidal policy was able to be systematically implemented by health care professionals who had previously taken an oath to provide care to all people. Carl Jung argued that powerful stories, told across generations, contain mythical archetypes that help drive the plot and convey beliefs about humanity. The aims of this paper are to explore Jungian ideas within Fog in August that help the historical story it is based on resonate with viewers today, and demonstrate how the application of these insights can help health care professionals more fully understand morally distressing events and, as a result, support and improve the safety of patients. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 99, Issue 3, Page 720-725, November 2019.

David Lockwood's distinction between System Integration and Social Integration is brought together with the Morphogenetic Approach to account for the current societal fragmentation experience...

In Good White People: The Problem with Middle-Class White Anti-Racism, Shannon Sullivan considers: "What can white people do to help end racial injustice?". As one response to this question, Sullivan argues that prescribing "white shame" and "white guilt" is useless, since promoting these ideas leads to self-hate and inaction on the part of white people. In this paper, I agree with Sullivan, but for different reasons. I argue that assuming that white people can feel ashamed simply about being white within (...) our current society is unfounded. I will maintain that the project of "promoting white shame" is fraught to begin with, and show the significance of this finding for conversations about white people's role in... (shrink)

Despite its virtues, lay decision-making in medicine shares with professional decision-making a disturbing common feature, reflected both in formal policies prohibiting high-risk research and in informal policies favoring treatment decisions made when a crisis or change of status occurs, often late in a downhill course. By discouraging patient decision-making but requiring dedication to the patient's interests by those who make decisions on the patient's behalf, such practices tend to preclude altruistic choice on the part of the patient. This eclipse is (...) to be regretted not just because widescale altruism has the capacity to provide important social goods and correct injustices in distribution, but for intrinsic reasons as well. It is argued that preserving the possibility of altruism obliges patients – and future patients – to make decisions about dying and other medical matters in advance, thus avoiding that displacement of decision-making onto lay and professional second parties which results in altruism's eclipse. Keywords: altruism, medical decision-making, patient's interest, self-interest, autonomy, death and dying decisions, refusal of treatment, prolongation of life, allowing to die, high-risk research CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

I defend moral objectivism against charges that it cannot plausibly preserve or explain morality's action-guiding nature. I take as my starting point the intuitive view that morality has a special connection to motivation: one who genuinely accepts a moral verdict must have a motivating reason to follow its dictates and, indeed, must often enough be motivated to act as it recommends. ;Many have argued that this connection vindicates subjectivism. Some argue that there can be no universally accessible truths whose acknowledgements (...) necessarily give one reason to act, because all reasons for action are based on desires that vary across rational agents. I argue against the Humean doctrine, implicit in this claim, that beliefs alone cannot move rational agents. The 18th-century metaphors of "passive" belief and "active" desire rest on arguments which either beg the question, equivocate, or misunderstand what would be involved in attributing the appropriate motivational power to belief. Others ground their objection in morality's holistic tie to desire, claiming that desires distort truth, rather than reveal it to us. I argue that there is nothing mysterious about the idea that possession of certain desires can be preconditions to seeing how things are. (shrink)

This book, the last volume in the Social Morphogenesis series, examines whether or not a Morphogenic society can foster new modes of human relations that could exercise a form of 'relational steering', protecting and promoting a nuanced version of the good life for all. It analyses the way in which the intensification of morphogenesis and the diminishing of morphostasis impact upon human flourishing. The book links intensified morphogenesis to promoting human flourishing based on the assumption that new opportunities open up (...) novel experiences, skills, and modes of communication that appeal to talents previously lacking any outlet or recognition. It proposes that equality of opportunity would increase as ascribed characteristics diminished in importance, and it could be maintained as the notion of achievement continued to diversify. Digitalization has opened the cultural 'archive' for more to explore and, as it expands exponentially, so do new complementary compatibilities whose development foster yet further opportunities. If more people can do more of what they do best, these represent stepping stones towards the 'good life' for more of them. (shrink)

Critiques of the ‘global’ have, in recent years, concerned the alleged implication of cultural dominance and secondly—and more philosophically—discerned therein foundationalism/essentialism. These charges will be examined. I next turn to the bearing of organizational/faculty matters on our theme, drawing on teaching experience in more than one country. The relocation of philosophy cannot but raise questions about how the subject itself is conceived. In the final section I suggest that the original humanist import of philosophical studies needs recovery, with ‘globality’ examined (...) critically not only over space but across time. This would involve not only due appreciation of argument (for no discipline lacks this) but of language, standpoint and attitude. (shrink)

Governments in New Zealand have legislated a large number of settlements extinguishing many hundreds of claims taken by Māori against the Crown for breaches of the country’s founding document, Te Tiriti o Waitangi. They portray settlements as a great success for Māori and the Crown. Māori disagree. Settlements are government-determined and imposed on Māori using a smoke and mirrors approach that masks successive governments’ true intentions: to claw back Māori legal rights; to extinguish all claims; and to maintain White control (...) over Māori. In short, to uphold the Doctrine of Discovery in further breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Māori claimants and negotiators report being enticed into the process by false promises only to become traumatised and disenchanted. Yet many take a pragmatic stance and sign settlements, making the best they can out of a bad deal that goes nowhere near compensating for their actual loss. They know that despite what legislation may say, the settlements are not full, not fair and not final and that, like all previous settlements, they will be revisited. They also know that unless fundamental changes are made to the constitutional makeup of the country, there is no prospect of justice and reconciliation for Māori. (shrink)

Acts of martyrdom have been found in nearly all major religions. Though considered by devotees to be perhaps the greatest expression of faith, martyrdom is also one of the most difficult concepts for modern observers of religion to understand. Cormack seeks to foster a greater understanding of these acts by explaining how martyrdom has historically been viewed in the major religions. She provides the first cross-cultural examination of this fascinating aspect of religious life.