Equality, Justice, and Paternalism: Recentreing Debate about Physician-Assisted Suicide

abstract   Debate about physician-assisted suicide has typically focused on the values of autonomy and patient wellbeing. This is understandable, even reasonable, given the import-ance of these values in bioethics. However, these are not the only moral values there are. The purpose of this paper is to examine physician-assisted suicide on the basis of the values of equality and justice. In particular, I will evaluate two arguments that invoke equality, one in favour of physician-assisted suicide, one against it, and I will eventually argue that a convincing equality-based argument in support of physician-assisted suicide is available. I will conclude by showing how an equality-based perspective transforms some secondary features of debate about this issue.     

The Debate on Structured Debate: Toward a Unified Theory

Although structured debate has been studied extensively over the past 20 years, little theoretical understanding of the phenomenon exists. By examining the literature, this paper builds a theoretical framework for understanding structured debate by raising and exploring several key, but previously implicit theoretical issues. The paper also argues that process modeling of structured debate in group settings can afford theoretical understanding, and offers several such models and coding schemes. The implications of structured debate in real-world settings are also considered.     

The Infirmity Debate: On the Viability of New Age Spiritualities of Life

The ‘infirmity debate’ is becoming increasingly lively. On the one hand, scholars argue that New Age spiritualities of life are in a ‘poor’ condition; on the other hand, scholars argue that they are in a good state of ‘health’. Drawing on key publications, including articles from the Journal of Contemporary Religion, the argument is couched in terms of ‘the turn to the self’—more specifically ‘the massive subjective turn of modern culture’. How do New Age spiritualities of life fare in the context of this development? Concentrating on activities found in the holistic milieu which is to be found in many countries today, the argument is that activities like yoga or spiritual aromatherapy serve as ‘intermediary institutions’, successfully negotiating a path between antinomian freedom and social conformism.     

平等需要被证明——卢梭平等思想的启示

卢梭认为人人生而平等,只有平等地对待他人,才能平等地得到他人的对待。也就是说我们每个人都有平等地追求幸福的权利,每个人对一切幸福的手段也都有平等的要求。然而,我们发现,在人类社会中平等是千百年来人们所追求和赞美的理想目标,是人的一种理性的诉求,平等本身变成了一种幸福的追求,平等的追求是理想的追求。整个人类文明的发展就是一部不断追求并逐步实现平等的历史。     

The Debate: A Strategic Technique

This paper describes the work of a strategic team that came out from behind the one-way mirror. A debate among the team is enacted before the family as a strategy for change. The case of a family that refused to provide information illustrates an application of this method. The debate among the therapists represents a dilemma that is a strategically constructed isomorph of the family situation. From this position, therapists have the option of changing levels between themselves and the family, asking the family to help solve the therapists' dilemma so that they in turn can be free to help the family. The combination of the debate and the change of levels between the therapists and the family creates a therapeutic neutrality for the family. From their meta position, they observe the therapists' struggle to solve the family's problem, which is re-presented as a problem among the therapists. This perspective offers the family the choice of more adaptive solutions to their own dilemma.     

On Constitution and All-Fusions

Recently, Judith Jarvis Thomson has offered a definition of the constitution relation against the backdrop of a robust ontology of objects she calls all-fusions. Despite finding her reasons to believe in all manner of all-fusions intriguing, in this paper I note an unsatisfactory consequence of her position for constitution-theorists. I argue that an unrestricted commitmentto all-fusions should lead the constitution-theorist to reject her definitionof the constitution relation, on the grounds that by choosing our all-fusionscarefully, we can secure the unpalatable result that two different all-fusionsconstitute (or are constituted by) the same thing, even though neither one ofthem constitutes the other.     

哲学的终结：对一场针锋相对的争论的剖析

一、引言 当今许多预言家宣布说,哲学的终结即将到来.他们以多种声音、语言和语调传播他们的断言.尽管他们在意识形态和地理上参差不齐,但他们似乎享有一个共同的思路.     

The Logic of The Goldhagen Debate

Since Daniel J. Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaustattempts to show that the Holocaust is explicable and can be understood largely in terms of a single cause, “eliminationist anti-Semitism”, it is not surprising that the book has generated an international debate. What is surprising is the magnitude and emotional intensity of the debate. This article argues that the deepest flaws in it Hitler's Willing Executioners,as well as the chasm of disagreement between Goldhagen's detractors and defenders, have as much to do with reasoning and concepts as with matters of fact. It concludes that Goldhagen's central argument is stronger than many of his critics claim, but that the inadequacy of his cognitive interpretation of anti-Semitism and his unexamined psychological assumptions weaken his attempt to explain the Holocaust. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.