This book examines the life and work of American historian Alan Brinkley, with a focus on his areas of expertise, including the critical periods of the Great Depression and World War II and their i...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Attic Document Reliefs: Art and Politics in Ancient AthensWilliam C. WestCarol L. Lawton. Attic Document Reliefs: Art and Politics in Ancient Athens. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. xxii 1 167 pp. 96 pls. Cloth, $100. (Oxford Monographs on Classical Archaeology)Although long recognized as a distinct genre, the reliefs on documents have not been collected comprehensively and studied for their own sake. They are set above the texts of honorary (...) decrees, alliances and documents concerning [End Page 465] foreign affairs, decrees concerning cults, accounts and inventories, public dedications, and other inscriptions. Previous work on the subject (Binnebössel 1932; Meyer 1989) sought to relate the reliefs to other genres of art. Lawton notes that the document relief is “the only genre of Greek art that explicitly and consistently refers to contemporary events in the political sphere” (4). The style of the sculpture of the reliefs is shown to be conservative, “following rather than setting the sculptural trends of their own day” (73).The aim of illustrating documents with reliefs seems to be the desire to highlight certain relations to the text (deities as representative of cities; heroes, personifications of Demos, Boule, and Demokratia; individuals honored set amid the appropriate divinities, etc.). Expenses for inscribing were sometimes shared, as by cities of the empire or by individuals who received honorary decrees, but the cost of inscribing probably also included the reliefs (23–24). They would have been commissioned by authority of the secretaries of the assembly (or other political group such as deme or tribe) in consultation with sculptors and masons. Thus the relief contributes to the artistic display, just as certain features of the layout of the text on the stone (stoichedon style, intentional use of vacat, chequer pattern) serve to articulate the elements of the text and create an attractive monument. Lawton asserts that most of the document reliefs had a votive function, as they were set up in sanctuaries (29).Lawton presents a catalogue of 187 reliefs, arranged in two parts (dated and undated) and listed in chronological order within each part. Each item is accompanied by a lemma giving its most accessible publication, location, measurements, iconographical description, and bibliography. Thus 62 are classified as dated and 125 as undated. Although they range from the middle of the fifth to the second half of the second century B.C., the overwhelming preponderance fall in the fifth and fourth centuries. Statistics make the point effectively: fifth century, 28 total (12 dated, 16 undated); fourth century, 148 total (46 dated, 102 undated). Five are classified “late 5th-early 4th century,” bringing the grand total to 181. Of the dated group in the fourth century, only 9 can be put after 323 and only 4 after 318/17. One might justifiably conclude that the document relief is a phenomenon of the classical period, continued occasionally after it.Lawton offers excellent analyses, with concise discussion of relevant interpretations, in terms of type of inscription, iconography, style, and chronology. Where problems in interpretation still persist, she is careful to note the probabilities.Possibly the earliest surviving document with a relief is the Miletos decree (no. 63 = IG I3 21), which is put by Meritt and others about 450 because it uses the three-bar sigma, but in the 420s by H.B. Mattingly. Lawton summarizes fairly the arguments for both datings but does not insist on either. Rather, she notes the frequency of document reliefs from the 420s onward.IG I3 68 (no. 1), on the collection of tribute, is presented as the earliest securely dated inscription. Perhaps here the case is stated too positively, as the date 426/25 depends on the identification of the proposer Kleonymos with the man [End Page 466] who proposed a decree favoring Methone in the first prytany of that year (Meiggs and Lewis, no. 68, p. 188). Hence the date is probable, rather than certain. Secure dates for several decrees of the fourth century come from the name of the archon in the heading, but in cases where insufficient text is preserved for certainty (as in IG II2 133, no. 30) it should be noted that the stoichedon pattern provides... (shrink)

This study examined more than 2,500 war images from U.S. television news, newspapers, news magazines, and online news sites during the first five weeks of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and found that only 10% showed injury or death. The paper analyzes which media platforms were most willing to show casualties and offers insights on when journalists should use gruesome war images or keep them secret.

A number of philosophers have argued that the Holocaust is incapable of philosophical analysis and explanation. There are two arguments for this view: (1) that it is unique, and thus resists such analysis; and (2) that it is incomprehensible, and thus incapable of being understood. In this article, several versions of both of these arguments are considered and shown not to support the conclusion that the Holocaust resists philosophical explanation. An alternative route to philosophical explanation is then suggested.

This paper stems from an ethnographic, multidisciplinary study that explored the views and experiences of practitioners and scientists on social, ethical and clinical dilemmas encountered when working in the area of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis for serious genetic disorders. We focus here on staff perceptions and experiences of working with embryos and helping women/couples to make choices that will result in selecting embryos for transfer and disposal of 'affected' embryos, compared to the termination of affected pregnancies following prenatal diagnosis. Analysis and (...) discussion of our data led us to consider the possible advantages of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and whether a gradualist account of the embryo's and fetus's moral status can account for all of these, particularly since a gradualist account concentrates on the significance of time (developmental stage) and makes no comment as to the significance of place (in vitro, in utero). (shrink)

_The Limits of Utilitarianism _ was first published in 1982. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Many philosophers have argued that utilitarianism is an unacceptable moral theory and that promoting the general welfare is at best only one of the legitimate goals of public policy. Utilitarian principles seem to place no limits on the extent to which society may legitimately interfere with (...) a person's liberties - provided that such actions can be shown to promote the long-term welfare of its members. These issues have played a central role in discussions of utilitarianism since the time of Bentham and Mill. Despite criticisms, utilitarianism remains the most influential and widely accepted moral theory of recent times. In this volume contemporary philosophers address four aspects of utilitarianism: the principle of utility; utilitarianism vis-à-vis contractarianism; welfare; and voluntary cooperation and helping others. The editors provide an introduction and a comprehensive bibliography that covers all books and articles published in utilitarianism since 1930. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of essays concerned with the morality of hu man treatment of nonhuman animals. The contributors take very different approaches to their topics and come to widely divergent conclusions. The goal of the volume as a whole is to shed a brighter light upon an aspect of human life-our relations with the other animals-that has recently seen a great increase in interest and in the generation of heat. The discussions and debates contained herein are addressed by (...) the contributors to each other, to the general public, and to the academic world, especially the biological, philosophical, and political parts of that world. The essays are organized into eight sections by topics, each sec tion beginning with a brief introduction linking the papers and the sec tions to one another. There is also a general introduction and an Epilog that suggests alternate possible ways of organizing the material. The first two sections are concerned with the place of animals in the human world: Section I with the ways humans view animals in literature, philosophy, and other parts of human culture, and Section II with the place of animals in human legal and moral community. The next three sections concern comparisons between human and nonhuman animals: Section III on the rights and wrongs of killing, Section IV on the humanity of animals and the animality of humans, and Section V on questions of the conflict of human and animal interests. (shrink)

Behaving ethically depends on the ability to recognize that ethical issues exist, to see from an ethical point of view. This ability to see and respond ethically may be related more to attributes of corporate culture than to attributes of individual employees. Efforts to increase ethical standards and decrease pressure to behave unethically should therefore concentrate on the organization and its culture. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how total quality (TQ) techniques can facilitate the development of a (...) cooperative corporate culture that promotes and encourages ethical behavior throughout an organization. (shrink)

Background: In biomedical research, there have been numerous scandals highlighting conflicts of interest (COIs) leading to significant bias in judgment and questionable practices. Academic institutions, journals, and funding agencies have developed and enforced policies to mitigate issues related to COI, especially surrounding financial interests. After a case of editorial COI in a prominent bioethics journal, there is concern that the same level of oversight regarding COIs in the biomedical sciences may not apply to the field of bioethics. In this study, (...) we examined the availability and comprehensiveness of COI policies for authors, peer reviewers, and editors of bioethics journals. Methods: After developing a codebook, we analyzed the content of online COI policies of 63 bioethics journals, along with policy information provided by journal editors that was not publicly available. Results: Just over half of the bioethics journals had COI policies for authors (57%), and only 25% for peer reviewers and 19% for editors. There was significant variation among policies regarding definitions, the types of COIs described, the management mechanisms, and the consequences for noncompliance. Definitions and descriptions centered on financial COIs, followed by personal and professional relationships. Almost all COI policies required disclosure of interests for authors as the primary management mechanism. Very few journals outlined consequences for noncompliance with COI policies or provided additional resources. Conclusion: Compared to other studies of biomedical journals, a much lower percentage of bioethics journals have COI policies and these vary substantially in content. The bioethics publishing community needs to develop robust policies for authors, peer reviewers, and editors and these should be made publicly available to enhance academic and public trust in bioethics scholarship. (shrink)

Emotionality is a basic feature of behavior. The argument over whether the expression of emotions is based primarily on culture (constructivism, nurture) or biology (natural forms, nature) will never be resolved because both alternatives are untenable. The evidence is overwhelming that at all ages and all levels of organization, the development of emotionality is epigenetic: The organism is an active participant in its own development. To ascribe these effects to “experience” was the best that could be done for many years. (...) With the rapid acceleration of information on how changes in organization are actually brought about, it is a good time to review, update, and revitalize our views of experience in relation to the concept of basic emotion. (shrink)

A principal theme of our article is that emotions, including what are called basic emotions, cannot be exhaustively categorized as “innate” or “acquired.” Instead, we argue that basic emotions are more realistically viewed as emergent phenomena, the result of complex interrelations of environmental and organismic factors at all levels of organization. While the commentators apparently accepted the proposed developmental paradigm, they took exception to aspects of our treatment of basic emotions and made a number of helpful comments, to which we (...) respond below. (shrink)

This book assesses how Vatican II opened up the Catholic Church to encounter, dialogue, and engagement with other world religions. Opening with a contribution from the President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, it next explores the impact, relevance, and promise of the Declaration Nostra Aetate before turning to consider how Vatican II in general has influenced interfaith dialogue and the intellectual and comparative study of world religions in the postconciliar decades, as well as the contribution (...) of particular past and present thinkers to the formation of current interreligious and comparative theological methods. Additionally, chapters consider interreligious dialogue vis-à-vis theological anthropology in conciliar documents; openness to the spiritual practices of other faith traditions as a way of encouraging positive interreligious encounter; the role of lay and new ecclesial movements in interreligious dialogue; and the development of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue. Finally, it includes a range of perspectives on the fruits and future of Vatican’s II’s opening to particular faiths such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. (shrink)

In an analysis of 47 U.S. journalism ethics codes, we found that although most consider images, only 9 address a gripping issue: how to treat images of tragedy and violence, such as those produced on the battlefields of Iraq, during the 2005 London bombings, and after Hurricane Katrina. Among codes that consider violent and tragic images, there is agreement on what images are problematic and a move toward green-light considerations of ethical responsibilities. However, the special problems of violence and truth (...) telling in wartime and issues of how to handle graphic images across media platforms receive virtually no attention. (shrink)

A book chapter for the volume Eco-Anxiety and Planetary Hope: Experiencing the Twin Disasters of COVID-19 and Climate Change using Nietzsche's philosophy and primarily based on archival research done by William A. B. Parkhurst.

What determines whether an action is right or wrong? Morality, Rules, and Consequences: A Critical Reader explores for students and researchers the relationship between consequentialist theory and moral rules. Most of the chapters focus on rule consequentialism or on the distinction between act and rule versions of consequentialism. Contributors, among them the leading philosophers in the discipline, suggest ways of assessing whether rule consequentialism could be a satisfactory moral theory. These essays, all of which are previously unpublished, provide students in (...) moral philosophy with essential material and ask key questions on just what the criteria for an adequate moral theory might be. (shrink)

This paper shows that species are individuals with respect to evolutionary theory in the sense that the laws of the theory deal with species as irreducible wholes rather than as sets of organisms. 'Species X' is an instantiation of a primitive term of the theory. I present a sketch of a proof that it cannot be defined within the theory as a set of organisms; the proof relies not on details of my axiomatization but rather on a generally accepted property (...) of speciation; hence the same argument should work for any axiomatization which captures this generally accepted property of speciation. (shrink)

The rapid pace of technological development often outstrips the ability of legislators and regulators to establish proper guardrails on emerging technologies. A solution is for those who develop, deploy, and use these technologies to develop themselves as moral agents—i.e., as agents capable of steering the course of emerging technologies in a direction that will benefit humanity. However, there is a dearth of literature discussing how to foster moral agency in computer science courses, and little if any research on the effectiveness (...) of such courses in computer science. This paper addresses this gap by providing an overview of an undergraduate course on technology ethics. It then shares and discusses a subset of data collected from a mixed-methods study using a pre-post design that sought to examine the course’s effectiveness in developing students’ moral, intellectual, and civic virtues, as well as related dispositions. (shrink)

To better understand the available publications addressing ethical issues in rural health care we sought to identify the ethics literature that specifically focuses on rural America. We wanted to determine the extent to which the rural ethics literature was distributed between general commentaries, descriptive summaries of research, and original research publications. We identified 55 publications that specifically and substantively addressed rural health care ethics, published between 1966 and 2004. Only 7 (13%) of these publications were original research articles while (12) (...) 22% were descriptive summaries of research and 36 (65%) were general commentaries. The majority of publications examined (55%) were clinically focused while 27% addressed organizational ethics and 18% addressed ethical ramifications of rural health care policy at a national or community level. Our findings indicate that there are a limited number of publications focusing on rural health care ethics, suggesting a need for scholars and researchers to more rigorously address rural ethics issues. (shrink)

Most people do not think to observe geology from the sidewalks of a major city, but all David B. Williams has to do is look at building stone in any urban center to find a range of rocks equal to any assembled by plate tectonics. In Stories in Stone, he takes you on explorations to find 3.5-billion-year-old rock that looks like swirled pink-and-black taffy, a gas station made of petrified wood, and a Florida fort that has withstood three hundred (...) years of attacks and hurricanes, despite being made of a stone that has the consistency of a granola bar. Williams also weaves in the cultural history of stone, explaining why a white fossil-rich limestone from Indiana became the only building stone used in all fifty states; how in 1825, the construction of the Bunker Hill Monument led to America’s first commercial railroad; and why when the same kind of marble used by Michelangelo clad a Chicago skyscraper it warped so much after nineteen years that all 44,000 panels of it had to be replaced. This love letter to building stone brings to life the geology you can see in the structures of every city. (shrink)

Modern Moral Problems addresses moral quandaries that can beguile and confuse faithful Catholics. Written in a question-and-answer format, the book covers questions regarding sexuality, medical ethics, business practices, civic responsibilities, and the sacramental life of the Church. The extraordinary assortment of issuesforming a single, organized collectionis a valuable reference for anyone seeking clear and concise answers to tough moral questions. Written in a conversational tone often spliced with humor, this work by a highly respected moral theologian will be read with (...) fascination for its clarity of argument and fundamental good sense. Originally published as a monthly question-and-answer column in a magazine for priests, these selections by Msgr. William B. Smith retain a striking current topicality. Msgr. Smith often tackled matters of controversy in the Catholic Church, ones which continue to draw conflicting opinions. Interesting, informative, and eminently practical, this book conveys an overall impression that sound thinking about morality is rooted in a tradition within the Catholic Church, even when the answers to particular moral questions cannot be found in catechisms or Vatican documents. Msgr. Smith offers a clear-headed approach to the quandaries of our time precisely because of his training in traditional moral principles and his fidelity to the Catholic magisterium. This book should be in the possession of all seminarians and priests, who are bound to confront moral matters that are not so easily decided at first glance. But lay people, too, will find here rich responses to the challenging and sometimes unresolved moral questions they encounter in their own lives. (shrink)