Objectives To investigate empirically the motivations for not consenting to DNA biobanking in a Swedish population-based study and to discuss the implications. Design Structured questionnaires and semistructured interviews. Setting A longitudinal epidemiological project (PART) ongoing since 1998 in Stockholm, Sweden. The DNA-collection wave took place during 2006–7. Participants 903 individuals completed the questionnaire (participation rate 36%) and 23 were interviewed. All individuals had participated in both non-genetic waves of the project, but refused to contribute saliva samples during the DNA-collection wave. (...) Main outcome measures Motivations behind refusing to consent to DNA biobanking, with subsequent focus on participants' explanations regarding this unwillingness. Results Public refusal to consent to DNA biobanking, as revealed by the questionnaire, was mainly explained by a lack of personal relevance of DNA contribution and feelings of discomfort related to the DNA being used for purposes other than the respective study. Interviews of individuals representing the second motivation, revealed a significant mistrust of DNA biobank studies. The underlying beliefs and attitudes were associated with concerns about integrity, privacy, suspiciousness and insecurity. However, most interviewees were supportive of genetic research per se and interpreted their mistrust in the light of distressing environmental influences. Conclusion The results suggest a need for guidelines on benefit sharing, as well as trustworthy and stable measures to maintain privacy, as a means for increasing personal relevance and trust among potential participants in genetic research. Measures taken from biobanks seem insufficient in maintaining and increasing trust, suggesting that broader societal measures should be taken. (shrink)

Objectives: This study attempts to analyse the ethical dilemmas arising from the microallocation of scarce health care resources, in terms of deontology and utilitarianism.Methods: A group of 395 people were interviewed in the region of Diadema, greater San Paulo, Brazil, while visiting patients in the only state hospital in town. Each interviewee was given a list of eight simulated emergencies . In each of the eight cases the interviewee had to choose which of the two patients described, both of whom (...) suffered from exactly the same problem, should receive the only hospital bed currently available. The differences between the hypothetical patients were as follows: age, gender, family dependency, and lifestyle. Each interviewee was asked to justify one of their responses. These responses were then analysed.Results: The results pointed to the co-existence of deontological and utilitarian orientations among the people interviewed. A tendency to give priority to the destitute was revealed throughout the research, contradicting the idea that society, valuing only productive people, wishes only such people to receive the most resources, thus maximising the benefits to be gained from resources. The results showed that people’s disapproval of the alcoholic was stronger than that of the nicotine abuser. (shrink)

We characterize strict Mittag-Leffler modules in terms of free realizations of positive primitive formulas, and rings over which projectives are trivial in terms of various notions of separability of strict Mittag-Leffler modules. © 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

An attractive paperback reprint of Cohen's illuminating studies in the philosophy of logic.--A. C. P.

A rather popular mixture of biography, philosophy, and theology, for the Catholic layman. Scotus' role in the defense of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception receives special emphasis. --A. C. P.

A careful and competent introduction to the Russell-Broad type of analytic philosophy.--A. C. P.

Messages describing life after death from the author's deceased brother-in-law.--A. C. P.

A popular but intelligent and readable examination of Marxist communism. The author holds that communism can best be seen as a religious response to the problem of evil; the many analogies he finds between communist and Christian doctrine bear him out.--A. C. P.

A course of lectures delivered at Cambridge in the summer of 1953. They include pieces by Moore, Broad, and Ryle. Körner's "Some Types of Philosophical Thinking" and Ryle's "The Theory of Meaning" are especially stimulating; the book as a whole presents an absorbing picture of contemporary British philosophy.--A. C. P.

A series of essays by a group of French Catholic teachers and scholars, roughly half of which deal with the history of Christian asceticism. The remainder are addressed to theological and sociological questions concerning ascetic practice.--A. C. P.

A systematic statement and defence of an evangelical Christian ethics. Despite the length of the book, many crucial topics--e.g., contemporary alternatives to a theistic ethics--receive only superficial consideration--A. C. P.

Bultmann's "demythologizing," according to Mr. Davis, consists in stripping away the non-historical elements of the Bible in order to lay bare the kernel of "existential meaning" embedded in the events about which the myths arose. Mr. Davis is lucid about what Bultmann does not believe; his account of the "existential meaning" which is to replace "discredited mythology" is both sketchy and puzzling.-- A. C. P.

A collection of ten essays and addresses, all but one of which have been published previously. Among them is a fascinating essay showing that Jonathan Edwards consciously developed his homilectical methods in terms of Locke's psychology and epistemology. These pieces constitute "a rank of spotlights on the massive narrative of the movement of the European culture into the vacant wilderness of America"; each is prefaced by a newly written introduction indicating its relevance to the unifying theme of the volume, viz., (...) "the obsessive American drama: nature vs. civilization." It is this attempt to civilize nature that constitutes the "errand into the wilderness." The volume is dominated throughout by Miller's conviction that intellectual history is as crucial to the understanding of a nation or a culture as is social or economic history; and the illumination which the essays actually afford is compelling evidence for his conviction.--A. C. P. (shrink)

The thesis of this essay in philosophical analysis is that ethical words are used referentially, that for the most part they have a single unitary sense, and that they refer to whatever is "happy-making" or satisfying. The author supports this conclusion by means of detailed refutations of some of the criticisms brought against naturalism, paying special attention to the "naturalistic fallacy" argument as developed by Moore, Ewing and the contemporary non-cognitivists. He concludes that philosophical analysis ought to reject the "method (...) of introspection" in favor of inductive inquiries into the ways in which as a matter of fact people use ethical words.--A. C. P. (shrink)

Describes the attempt of a medium "to bring the facts of other-world existence to the people of Mars." Giordano Bruno appears as one of a band of interplanetary spirits conducting the medium on her tour.--A. C. P.

This powerful study of freedom is the first volume of a new edition of Edwards' work under the general editorship of Perry Miller. The editors intend to publish the manuscript material as well as the printed works. This volume is handsome and well printed; Ramsey contributes a solid introduction outlining Edwards' argument and the relation of his thought to Locke, Berkeley, and Leibniz.--A. C. P.

A systematic and thorough-going account of Fichte's philosophical version of Christianity.--A. C. P.

A series of inspirational essays dictated to the author by a higher intelligence from the spirit world. Much of the advice seems fairly sound--e.g., "Be true to the best," Make room for important things," "Relax."--A.C.P.

A full and systematic exposition of the teachings of a thinker who has been hailed as the Avatar of our time. He describes the odyssey of the soul from its creation through its "evolution and involution of consciousness" to its eventual return into the Oversoul. The book is somewhat repetitive, and the profusion of Indian terms together with a certain incoherence make it hard going for the uninitiated--A. C. P.

A preliminary sketch of a philosophy of history together with an account of certain phases in ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman history. Though the book is interesting and well written, it is impossible to tell whether the chapter on philosophy is to serve as a preface to the following three historical chapters, or whether these chapters are meant to illustrate and elucidate the embryonic philosophy outlined in the first.--A. C. P.

A nicely printed paperback reissue of some essays in which Santayana tries to show that "religion and poetry are identical in essence."--A. C. P.

A lecture by an eminent biologist in which the crucial problem of contemporary biology and psychology is identified as the problem of the nature of mind. Sinnott's suggestion--that the solution lies in "a fundamental identification of life and mind"--is interesting and provocative, but he attempts a bit too much for the space at his disposal.--A. C. P.

This book claims to be an attempt to present semantics to the general public. "Semantics," however, turns out to be a general rubric for some of the logical doctrines of recent ordinary language philosophy. Oversimplification leads Wilson to present as the discovery of modern "semantics" an extraordinarily naive linguistic subjectivism.--A. C. P.

The notion that our society, its education system and its intellectual life, is characterised by a split between two cultures – the arts or humanities on one hand, and the sciences on the other – has a long history. But it was C. P. Snow's Rede lecture of 1959 that brought it to prominence and began a public debate that is still raging in the media today. This 50th anniversary printing of The Two Cultures and its successor piece, A Second (...) Look features an introduction by Stefan Collini, charting the history and context of the debate, its implications and its afterlife. The importance of science and technology in policy run largely by non-scientists, the future for education and research, and the problem of fragmentation threatening hopes for a common culture are just some of the subjects discussed. (shrink)

The notion that our society, its education system and its intellectual life, is characterised by a split between two cultures – the arts or humanities on one hand and the sciences on the other – has a long history. But it was C. P. Snow's Rede lecture of 1959 that brought it to prominence and began a public debate that is still raging in the media today. This fiftieth anniversary printing of The Two Cultures and its successor piece, A Second (...) Look features an introduction by Stefan Collini, charting the history and context of the debate, its implications and its afterlife. The importance of science and technology in policy run largely by non-scientists, the future for education and research, and the problem of fragmentation threatening hopes for a common culture are just some of the subjects discussed. (shrink)

The Toronto experience suggests that there may be several general lessons for academic health sciences complexes to learn from the Olivieri/Apotex affair regarding the ethics, independence, and integrity of clinical research sponsored by for profit enterprises. From a local perspective, the OAA occurred when there already was a focus on the complex and changing relationships among the University of Toronto, its medical school, the fully affiliated teaching hospitals, and off campus faculty because of intertwined interests and responsibilities. The OAA became (...) a catalyst that accelerated various systemic reforms, particularly concerning academic/industry relations. In this article, the evolving governance framework for the Toronto academic health sciences complex is reviewed and these policy and process reforms discussed. These reforms have created collaborative activity among research ethics boards and contract research offices of the partner institutions, and allowed the joint university/hospital ethics centre to play a role in governance and policy, while respecting the missions and mandates of the involved institutions. Although few of the policies are dramatically innovative, what is arguably novel is the elaboration of an overarching governance framework that aims to move ethics to a central focus in the academic complex. Time alone will tell how sustainable and effective these changes are. (shrink)

Attempting to elucidate the logical features of ethical language, Baier holds that moral judgments express somewhat complicated facts which, for anyone who has adopted the "moral point of view," serve as reasons for action. Clearly written and subtly argued, this book may well come to occupy an important place in the literature of contemporary analytic ethics.--A. C. P.