The ‘redefinition of death’ debate: Western concepts and western bioethics

Biomedicine is a global enterprise constructed upon the belief in the universality of scientific truths. However, despite huge scientific advances over recent decades it has not been able to formulate a specific and universal definition of death: In fact, in its attempt to redefine death, the concept of death appears to have become immersed in ever increasing vagueness and ambiguity. Even more worrisome is that bioethics, in the form of principlism, is also endeavouring to become a global enterprise by claiming neutrality. It appears that the discourse within both disciplines have similarly manipulated the boundaries of death to include the “dying”. This paper argues that the redefinition of death debate in biomedicine reveals a concept of personhood which is profoundly western in origin and which is in accordance to the concept adhered to within principlism. Biomedicine and bioethics do not appear to acknowledge the limitations of their own world view and hence lack an understanding of their applicability and appropriateness in diverse social and cultural contexts; a situation which adds credence to claims as to the hegemonic and imperialistic nature of all such global enterprises. Ms. Jones is an intensive care clinical nursing specialist. Dr. Kessel is a public health physician and medical ethicist.     

The ‘Medical Body’ As Philosophy's Arena

Medicine, as Byron Good argues, reconstitutes thehuman body of our daily experience as a medical body,unfamiliar outside medicine. This reconstitution can be seen intwo ways: (i) as a salutary reminder of the extent to which thereality even of the human body is constructed; and (ii) as anarena for what Stephen Toulmin distinguishes as theintersection of natural science and history, in which many ofphilosophy's traditional (and traditionally abstract) questionsare given concrete and urgent form.This paper begins by examining a number of dualities between themedical body and the body familiar in daily experience. Toulmin's epistemological analysis of clinical medicine ascombining both universal and existential knowledge is thenconsidered. Their expression, in terms of attention,respectively, to natural science and to personal history, isexplored through the epistemological contrasts between themedical body and the familiar body, noting the traditionalphilosophical questions which they in turn illustrate.     

God and Contemporary Science: Philip Clayton's Defense of Panentheism

Philip Clayton's God and Contemporary Science is summarized and discussed. Clayton presents a theological reading of biblical texts. In my opinion, science-and-religion studies should deal more substantially with insights of secular studies on the situated character of these texts. Clayton uses the relationship between mind and brain as analogy for the relationship between God and the world. This runs the risk of understanding God as analogous to the mind and hence secondary and emergent relative to the world. Besides, Clayton's arguments for “mental causation” are wanting. But then, why should a defender of panentheism decouple the mental and the material?     

In Defense of Individualism

This paper offers a programmatic philosophical articulation of moral and political individualism. This individualism consists of two main components: value individualism and rights individualism. The former is the view that, for each individual, the end which is of ultimate value is his own well-being. Each individual's well-being has ultimate agent-relative value and the only ultimate values are these agent-relative values. The latter view is that individuals possess moral jurisdiction over themselves, i.e., rights of self-ownership. These rights (along with other rights individuals may come to possess) constrain the manner in which agents may pursue value. For this reason, the articulated individualism is an constrained individualism. Sketches of arguments are offered for both value and rights individualism. And it is argued that the sole legitimate function of legal/political institutions is to further delineate and protect the rights of individuals. However, the paper is also concerned to indicate why this radical moral and political individualism does not have many of the features or implications that are commonly ascribed to it. In this connection, I seek to show how this social doctrine accords with individuals' having concern for the well-being of others, with the emergence of relationships among individuals that have both instrumental and non-instrumental value, with a degree of responsibility for self and others that is often thought to be antithetical to individualism and, in general, with a flourishing of civil order.     

Keeping Up with the Cloneses -- Issues in Human Cloning

The advent of cloning animals has created a maelstrom of social concern about the ethical issues associated with the possibility of cloning humans. When the ethical concerns are clearly examined, however, many of them turn out to be less matters of rational ethics than knee-jerk emotion, religious bias, or fear of that which is not understood. Three categories of real and spurious ethical concerns are presented and discussed: 1) that cloning is intrinsically wrong, 2) that cloning must lead to bad consequences, and 3) that cloning harms the organism generated. The need for a rational ethical framework for discussing biotechnological advances is presented and defended.     

孔子是怎样解释《周易》的

孔子与《易》是有密切关系的,抛开《史记》和帛书的记载不言,仅就《论语》中两条最直接的材料来看确实如此。"加我数年……"当为孔子五十之前所说。五十之前,孔子也曾学《易》,而孔子认为知天命之年尤需学《易》。"不占而已"表明孔子解《易》以德,判定吉凶不需要占筮,而是取决于人的德性。孔子以"生生之德性"解《易》,以"道德必然性"解"天命",通过揭去《周易》的神秘外衣,发掘并发展其天人之学,将隐微难言的性与天道托诸于显著的人道德性,发展出天人合一的德性学说。     

What Is Legal Philosophy?

This article delineates some of the main issues that are debated by philosophers of law. It explores the connections between legal philosophy and other areas of philosophy, while also seeking to specify the distinctiveness of many of the concerns that have preoccupied philosophers of law. It illustrates its abstract points with examples focused on the separability of law and morality, the nature of the rule of law, the nature of rights, justifications for the imposition of punishment, and the identification of basic legal entitlements.     

Justification is potential knowledge

This paper will articulate and defend a novel theory of epistemic justification; I characterize my view as the thesis that justification is potential knowledge (JPK). My project is an instance of the ‘knowledge-first’ programme, championed especially by Timothy Williamson. So I begin with a brief recapitulation of that programme.     

Children’s rights and the non-identity problem

Abstract

Can appealing to children’s rights help to solve the non-identity problem in cases of procreation? A number of philosophers have answered affirmatively, arguing that even if children cannot be harmed by being born into disadvantaged conditions, they may nevertheless be wronged if those conditions fail to meet a minimal standard of decency to which all children are putatively entitled. This paper defends the tenability of this view by outlining and responding to five prominent objections that have been raised against it in the contemporary literature: (1) the identifiability objection; (2) the non-existence objection; (3) the waiving of rights objection, (4) the lack of legitimate complaint objection; and (5) the unfairness objection.     

QUANTUM PHYSICS AND THEOLOGY: JOHN POLKINGHORNE ON THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS

Abstract Thought experimentation is part of accepted scientific practice, and this makes it surprising that philosophers of science did not seriously engage with it for a very long time. The situation changed in the 1990s, resulting in a highly intriguing debate over thought experiments. Initially, the discussion focused mostly on thought experiments in physics, philosophy, and mathematics. Other disciplines have since become the subject of interest. Yet, nothing substantial has been said about the role of thought experiments in nonphilosophical theology. This paper discusses the role of thought experiments in Christian theology in comparison to their role in quantum physics, as mentioned by John Polkinghorne in Quantum Physics and Theology. We first look briefly at the history of the inquiry into thought experiments and then at Polkinghorne's remarks about the role of thought experimentation in quantum physics and Christian eschatology. To determine the actual importance of thought experiments in Christian theology a number of new examples are introduced in a third step. In the light of these examples, in a fourth step, we address the question of what it is that explains the cognitive efficacy of thought experiments in quantum physics and Christian theology.