This chapter highlighted some salient trends in pediatric ethicsEthics, pediatric from different parts of the globe. It is interesting to note that although diverse, there are many similarities between ethical challenges in pediatrics in different parts of the world.

Independence is a central and recurring theme in Wollstonecraft’s work. Independence should not be understood as an individualistic ideal that is in tension with the value of community but as an essential ingredient in successful and flourishing social relationships. I examine three aspects of this rich and complex concept that Wollstonecraft draws on as she develops her own notion of independence as a powerful feminist tool. First, independence is an egalitarian ideal that requires that all individuals, regardless of sex, are (...) protected to a comparable extent in all areas of social, political and economic life, no matter whether this is in the public or private sphere. Secondly, so long as this egalitarian condition is not compromised, independence allows for individuals to perform differentiated social roles, including along gendered lines. Finally, the on-going and collective input of both women and men is required to ensure that the conditions necessary for social independence are maintained. In Wollstonecraft’s hands, then, independence is a powerful ideal that allows her to argue that women must be able to act on their own terms as social and political equals, doing so as women whose perspectives and interests may differ from men’s. (shrink)

How do we know that our own actions belong to us? How are we able to distinguish self-generated sensory events from those that arise externally? In this paper, I will briefly discuss experiments that were designed to investigate these questions. In particularly, I will review psychophysical and neuroimaging studies that have investigated how we recognise the consequences of our own actions, and why patients with delusions of control confuse self-produced and externally produced actions and sensations. Studies investigating the failure of (...) this 'self-monitoring' mechanism in patients with delusions of control will be discussed in the context of the hypothesis that overactivity in the parietal cortex and the cerebellum contribute to the misattribution of an action to an external source (). (shrink)

The purported failures of ergodic theory (seen in its often proved ineptitude to ground a mechanical explanation of thermodynamics) are shown to arise from misconception of the functions served by scientific explanation. In fact, the predictive failures of ergodic theory are precisely its points of greatest physical utility, where genuinely new knowledge about actual physical systems can be obtained, once the links between explanation and reconstructive estimation are recognized.

The model theoretic `back and forth' construction of isomorphisms and automorphisms is based on the proof by Cantor that the theory of dense linear orderings without endpoints is ℵ 0 -categorical. However, Cantor's method is slightly different and for many other structures it yields an injection which is not surjective. The purpose here is to examine Cantor's method (here called `going forth') and to determine when it works and when it fails. Partial answers to this question are found, extending those (...) earlier given by Cameron. We also give fuller characterisations of when forth suffices for model theoretic classes such as structures containing Jordan sets for the automorphism group, and ℵ 0 -categorical ω-stable structures. The work is based on the author's Ph.D. thesis. (shrink)

El registro de la personalidad de Pablo, su formación intelectual y su misión hacen de él un hombre de controversias y de originalidades en su discurso. Este artículo pretende describir: (a) la estructura argumentativa de la llamada 'carta a Filemón' (Fm), texto considerado de autoría paulina, y (b) las maniobras estratégicas que desarrolla el autor del documento para resolver la discusión crítica, específicamente a partir del uso de estrategias de cortesía verbal. En términos generales, desde un análisis dialéctico, la carta (...) nos presenta el pedido del prisionero para que Filemón reciba a Onésimo de regreso en su casa, así como los argumentos que favorecen esta postura. Al insertar las maniobras estratégicas, es decir, el elemento pragmático y retórico, se puede observar un cambio en el punto de vista y en el argumento. Las estrategias de cortesía verbal ayudan, por un lado, a que la comunidad acoja a Onésimo y, por otro lado, aprenda que los cristianos han sido generados por la fe en Cristo. Por tanto, no sólo se declara la petición, sino una nueva verdad de fe y una práctica de vida eclesial y social. Pablo salvaguarda la imagen negativa, apelando a un nuevo estilo de autoridad y a una renovada forma de vida comunitaria que va más allá del contexto específico en el que fue escrita la carta. Todo hombre y mujer de fe son miembros dignos de la comunidad porque son “mis entrañas” (Fm 12b). (shrink)

Introdução a Levinas a partir da discussão sobre a problemática da subjetividade.

The advent of moral pluralism in the post-modern age leads to a set of issues about how pluralistic societies can function. The questions of biomedical ethics frequently highlight the larger issues of moral pluralism and social cooperation. Reflection on these issues has focused on the decision making roles of the health care professionals, the patient, and the patient's family. One species of actor that has been neglected has been those institutions which are part of the public, secular realm and which (...) have a particular moral heritage. Keywords: approval, compromise, condemnation, integrity, toleration CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

By empirically investigating the neural correlates of the basic experience one makes of oneself as bodily self and of its alterations, new light can be shed on the relationship between self-disturbances and social deficits in schizophrenia. We review recent neuroscientific evidence showing how a pre-reflective, experiential understanding of others can be accomplished, so that others are conceived as bodily selves by means of neural reuse of our own sensorimotor and visceromotor resources, and how a clear distinction between self and other (...) is normally preserved. By conjugating identity and alterity, a putative neural mechanism is provided underpinning the blurring of such distinction in schizophrenic patients. The reviewed empirical data suggest brain function anomalies at the levels of multisensory integration, differential processing of self- and other-related bodily information, and mediating self-experience at the basis of an imbalance in the pre-reflective relationship of the embodied self to the world including the social environment. (shrink)

From the outset Marenbon contends that in treating Peter Abelard as a critic and logician only, most scholars have neglected the originality of thought which Abelard brought to the questions of his day: “The aim of this book is to show that... [Abelard’s] was more than a fleeting superficial brilliance. He was a constructive and, at times, systematic philosopher; and, although it is certainly true that he used the methods of logic in treating Christian doctrine, his theology is remarkable for (...) much more than its method”. (shrink)

Introduction -- Tending the dark fire: the Boehmian notion of drive -- The night-side of nature: the early Schellingian unconscious -- The speculative psychology of dissociation: the later Schellingian unconscious -- Schellingian libido theory.

There are good reasons for envisioning a global discourse about God, premised necessarily agreed upon perfections considered to be by definition proper to God, and for thinking through the implications of our understanding of God for morality. Philosophically, it makes sense to hold that claims about omnipotence, omniscience, and other superlative perfections are indeed maximal, and define “God” wherever the terminology of divine persons is taken up. Religiously too, it makes sense to assert that a deity possessed of perfections is (...) not just the deity of one’s own tribe or religion, but also the deity of the whole world, whether acknowledged as such or not. This essay delves into the larger set of rich complexities by three moves. First, I look into a single extended historical case of the extension of the discourse about God beyond the Christian West, the discourse on God proffered by Western Jesuit missionaries in India from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries. Second, I place next to that Jesuit learning the instance of a famed Hindu theologian’s discourse on God, God’s perfections, and their moral implications. Third, I briefly step back and assess the dangers and fruitful prospects inherent in thinking about God and morality in an interreligious context. (shrink)

Gaston Fessard employs Hegel’s dialectical logic to clarify how St. Ignatius’s _Spiritual Exercises_ envisage and prepare the decisions and choices between contrasting options or major turning points in spiritual life, in moments of what Ignatius would call _Election_.