This chapter examines Soren Kierkegaard's views and relationship with the Church, explaining that while Kierkegaard was a frequent churchgoer, he also considered the Church a corrupt and disgraceful business enterprise. It discusses Kierkegaard's criticism on the development of the Church as an institution and analyses various aspects of his ecclesiastical conception of the Church. The chapter also considers Kierkegaard's own experiences in writing and delivering sermons.

Designer Biology: The Ethics of Intensively Engineering Biological and Ecological Systems consists of thirteen chapters that address the ethical issues raised by technological intervention and design across a broad range of biological and ecological systems. Among the technologies addressed are geoengineering, human enhancement, sex selection, genetic modification, and synthetic biology.

Genetic modification leads to several important moral issues. Up until now they have mainly been discussed from the viewpoint that only individual living beings, above all animals, are morally considerable. The standpoint that also collective entities such as species belong to the moral sphere have seldom been taken into account in a more thorough way, although it is advocated by several important environmental ethicists. The main purpose of this article is to analyze in more detail than often has been done (...) what the practical consequences of this ethical position would be for the use of genetic engineering on animals and plants. The practical consequences of the holistic standpoint (focused on collective entities) of Holmes Rolston, III, is compared with the practical consequences of the individualistic standpoints (focused on individual living beings) of Bernard E. Rollin and Philipp Balzer, Klaus Peter Rippe, and Peter Schaber, respectively. The article also discusses whether the claim that species are morally considerable is tenable as a foundation for policy decisions on genetic engineering. (shrink)

Ich will meine Gedanken folgendermaßen zusammenfassen: Ein spontanes und früh erlerntes Glaubenserlebnis ringt immer mit einer wissenschaftlichen Analyse. Zwar wird die Religionspsychologie negativ aufgefaßt, aber sie hilft uns auch einzusehen, wie solch eine Einstellung entstehen kann. Die intensive Glaubenserfahrung enthält immer eine Totalitätsorientierung, die den eigentlichen Grund in transzendentalen Größen sucht. Eine aufgezwängte Umorientierung bringt immer einen gewissen Schmerz mit sich. Eine religionspsychologische Analyse der Glaubensmotive führt jedoch auch zu einem Verständnis für das wichtige Zusammenspiel, das die Symbol-motive der Tradition (...) haben, und müßte auch mit den persönlich erlebten Situationen seit der Kindheit rechnen. Dadurch, daß man Zusammenspielsmöglichkeiten zwischen den historisch gegebenen Modellen und den individuellen Situationen findet, geschieht ein Wechsel, der wichtige Modelle des menschlichen Lebens vertieft und ins Bewußtsein bringt. Dies ist doch kein selbstverständlicher oder automatischer Prozeß, sondern falsche Verbindungen und negative Bindungen sind auch möglich. Hier muß eine religionsspychologische Ethik entwickelt werden. Große Aufträge erwarten uns in der Zukunft. Das oben Erwähnte kann man auch so ausdrücken: Der Glaube an Gottes Wirken ist nicht streitig mit dem Handhaben wissenschaftlicher Modelle. Ebensowenig wie das Brot und der Wein des Abendmahls was anderes als Brot und Wein zu sein brauche, ebensowenig brauchen das Gesundbeten, das Zungenreden, die Prophezeiung, die Stigmatisierung, ja des Lebens heilige Momente etwas anderes zu sein als die Ergebnisse menschlich gegebener Prozesse, um Gottes Gegenwart zu erleben. Durch die innere symbolische Interaktion wird menschliche Dürftigkeit in eine Heiligkeit mit Ewigkeitswert verwandelt - und umgekehrt: Die jahrhundertelange Mythologie findet ihre menschliche Inkarnation. (shrink)

Morality and the invention of feminine desire -- Sexuality versus recognition : feminine desire in the ethical order -- The purest poem : Heidegger's Antigone -- From Oedipus to Antigone : revisiting the question of feminine desire -- Family politics/family ethics : Butler, Lacan, and the thing beyond the object.

Berg, J. Buñuels dagdröm.--Bergström, L. Pessimismens konsekvenser.--Furberg, M. Möjliga teser hos Johannes Climacus.--Halldén, S. Teckenrelationen och språkreglernas juridik.--Hedenius, I. Ett argument mot den rättsfilosofiska domstolsrealismen.--Mates, B. Om Platons argument "den tredje människan."--Marc-Wogau, K. Kant om lögnen.--Næss, A. Om filosofiske projekter som forener empirisk semantikk og metafysisk spekulasjon.--Ofstad, H. Får nazister lettere magesår enn humanister?--Prawitz, D. Om moraliska och logiska satsers sanning.--Stenius, E. Om Descartes' psykofysiska modell.--Tranøy, K. E. Filosofenes etiske ansvar.--Wright, G. H. von. En filosof ser på filosofien.

This book provides an overview of different ethical views on animal experimentation. Special attention is given to the production and experimental use of genetically modified animals. It proposes a middle course between those positions that are very critical and those very positive. This middle course implies that animal experiments originating in vital human research interests are commonly justified, provided that animal welfare is taken seriously. Some animal experiments are not acceptable, since the expected human benefit is too low and the (...) animal suffering too severe. This position is supported by an argument from species care according to which we have special obligations to our children and other humans due to special relations. The book tries to bridge the gap between animal ethics and animal welfare science by discussing various conceptions of animal welfare: function-centered, feeling-based, and those focusing on natural living. The theoretical starting-point is “imaginative casuistry.” This approach stresses the role of moral imagination and metaphor in ethical deliberation, accepts a plurality of values, and recognizes the importance of case-by-case balancing. In the discussion of genetically modified animals, both intrinsic ethical concerns and animal welfare concerns are addressed. (shrink)

We are now entering the Anthropocene Epoch—so runs a recent enthusiastic claim. Humans can and ought go beyond the natural and powerfully engineer a better planet, managing for climate change and building new ecosystems for a more prosperous future. Perhaps the Anthropocene is inevitable. But: Rejoice? Accommodate? Accept it, alas? Perhaps the wiser, more ethical course is not so much going “beyond” the natural as “keeping the natural in symbiosis” with humans, maintaining a tapestry of cultural and natural values, not (...) a trajectory even further into the Anthropocene. Keep the urban, rural, and wild. Enter the Semi-Anthropocene! Basically Natural! Carefully! (shrink)

Perceptual processes differ from cognitive, this paper argues, in functioning to be causally controlled by proximal stimuli, and being modular, at least in a modest sense that excludes their being isotropic in Jerry Fodor's sense. This claim agrees with such theorists as Jacob Beck and Ben Phillips that a function of stimulus-control is needed for perceptual status. In support of this necessity claim, I argue, inter alia, that E.J. Green's recent architectural account misclassifies processes deploying knowledge of grammar as perceptual. (...) _Pace_ Beck and Phillips, however, I argue a function of stimulus-control is insufficient for perceptual as opposed to cognitive status. One consideration in favour of such insufficiency, noted but (I argue) not convincingly rebutted by these theorists, concerns perpetually grounded demonstrative thought. Two other considerations trade on the fact that a function of stimulus-control can arise not from blind nature but intentional design or social institutions, where so-functioning processes may but need not be perceptual. I offer two cases where such processes are cognitive, viz. skilful play-by-play announcing of ongoing events, and voluntary visualizing of ongoing events under the guidance of apt play-by-play announcements, dubbed announcement-driven visualizing (ADV). The cognitive status of these three diverse phenomena cannot be explained by an absence of a perception-like representational format or content (for ADV has such) or by a presence of personal-level mental states causally mediating between stimuli and outputs (for perception has such). A bettter explanation invokes, I argue, the non-modular character of the generating process. (shrink)

In both environmental aesthetics and environmental ethics something of value is at stake. These are often connected: If beauty, then: duty. But not all duties are tied to beauties. Other premises, such as resource use or respect for life, might better yield duties. Human aesthetic capacities depend on aesthetic properties of value. Wildlife admirers focus on animal excellences. Biotic communities, ecosystems, have their integrities. In a participatory aesthetics, an appropriate admiration for nature transforms into our caring.

In _Plato on Democracy and Political technē_ Anders Dahl Sørensen offers an in-depth investigation of Plato’s discussions of democracy’s ‘epistemic potential’, arguing that this question is far more central to his political thought than is usually assumed.

This article analyses and presents a survey of ethical conflicts in prehospital emergency care. The results are based on six focus group interviews with 29 registered nurses and paramedics working in prehospital emergency care at three different locations: a small town, a part of a major city and a sparsely populated area. Ethical conflict was found to arise in 10 different nodes of conflict: the patient/carer relationship, the patient’s self-determination, the patient’s best interest, the carer’s professional ideals, the carer’s professional (...) role and self-identity, significant others and bystanders, other care professionals, organizational structure and resource management, societal ideals, and other professionals. It is often argued that prehospital care is unique in comparison with other forms of care. However, in this article we do not find support for the idea that ethical conflicts occurring in prehospital care are unique, even if some may be more common in this context. (shrink)

For decades, nursing as a discipline has tried to establish itself within the socio‐professional and the socio‐political arenas. To date, several theorists have attempted to thoroughly define the essence (ontology) of nursing while others have proposed means (syntax) to achieve this ‘collective’ objective. Considering that this preoccupation, rooted in essentialism, is pervasive in the nursing literature, our claim is that these quests should be criticized because they impede innovative and transdisciplinary approaches to nursing theory. Our criticism includes the perspective supported (...) by the so‐called ‘postmodern nursing theorists’. We argue that the oeuvre of some nursing postmodern scholars is as prescriptive and linear as the ones they critique. Like it was done before, the discourse of these thinkers perpetuates the status quo by excluding alternative forms of knowledge that cross the boundaries of the discipline of nursing. Using the work of Deleuze and Guattari, this paper proposes an alternative way to conceive the development of nursing knowledge, which, we think, could represent an alternative way to explore the discipline of nursing. (shrink)

There are those who would argue that, recently, the profession of nursing has made a radical shift, while others believe that a schism has been created among both scholars and clinicians as a result of the emerging dominance of the evidence‐based nursing movement. This paper offers a philosophical critique of this movement using Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concept of schizoanalysis. As a conclusion, the authors posit that nursing professionals maintain a stance of academic freedom of thought and scientific integrity (...) through the acceptance of multiplicity, diversity, and polyvocality, and by challenging with politically charged concepts the totalizing perspectives that often spread through the profession/discipline of nursing. (shrink)

An eloquent introduction to the ethical and philosophical values at stake in biological conservation, this book familiarizes readers with the general issues and possible solutions to the problems societies face in simultaneously conserving nature and promoting culture.

Two protechnology arguments, the “hopeful principle” and the “automatic escalator”, often used in bioethics, are identified and critically analysed in this paper. It is shown that the hopeful principle is closely related to the problematic precautionary principle, and the automatic escalator argument has close affinities to the often criticised empirical slippery slope argument. The hopeful principle is shown to be really hopeless as an argument, and automatic escalator arguments often lead nowhere when critically analysed. These arguments should therefore only be (...) used with great caution. (shrink)

One of the arguments that is often put forward in the discussion of human cloning is that it is in itself wrong to create a copy of a human being.

ABSTRACTPast research reveals important connections between meditative practices and compassion. Most studies, however, focus on the effects of one type of meditation (vs. a no-intervention control...

Inference has long been a concern in epistemology, as an essential means by which we extend our knowledge and test our beliefs. Inference is also a key notion in influential psychological or philosophical accounts of mental capacities, from perception via utterance comprehension to problem-solving. Consciousness, on the other hand, has arguably been the defining interest of philosophy of mind over recent decades. Comparatively little attention, however, has been devoted to the significance of consciousness for the proper understanding of the nature (...) and role of inference. It is commonly suggested that inference may be either conscious or unconscious. Yet how unified are these various supposed instances of inference? Does either enjoy explanatory priority in relation to the other? In what ways or senses, can an inference be conscious, or fail to be conscious, and how does this matter? This book brings together original essays from established scholars and emerging theorists that illustrate how several current debates in epistemology, philosophy of psychology, and philosophy of mind can benefit from reflections on these and related questions about the significance of consciousness for inference. Contributors include: Kirk Ludwig and Wade Munroe; Michael Rescorla; Federico Bongiorno and Lisa Bortolotti; Berit Brogaard; Nicholas Allott; Jake Quilty-Dunn and Eric Mandelbaum; Corine Besson; Anders Nes; David Henderson, Terry Horgan, and Matjaž Potrč; Elijah Chudnoff; and Ram Neta. (shrink)

This Second Edition of A New Environmental Ethics: The Next Millennium for Life on Earth offers clear, powerful, and often moving thoughts from Holmes Rolston III, one of the first and most respected philosophers to write on the environment and often called the "father of environmental ethics." Rolston surveys the full spectrum of approaches in the field of environmental ethics and offers critical assessments of contemporary academic accounts. He draws on a lifetime of research and experience to suggest an outlook, (...) and even hope, for the future. This forward-looking analysis, focused on the new millennium, will be a necessary complement to any balanced textbook or anthology in environmental ethics. The First Edition guaranteed "to put you in your place." Beyond that, the Second Edition, asks whether you want to live a "de-natured life on a de-natured planet." Key Updates in the Second Edition - Covers the worsening environmental situation due to actions of the Trump administration, including withdrawal from the Paris accord and from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change - Includes information on legislation in key U.S. states aimed to ameliorate the damage done at the Federal level - Increases coverage of group knowledge, group agreement and disagreement, and group action in collective environmental ethics, as distinguished from individual knowledge and action - Examines the deleterious effects of online consumer behavior - Explains how a loss of solidarity among a nation's citizens and even a larger solidary among humanity leads to environmental degradation - Offers new analysis of the effects of epistemic bubbles, echo chambers, and fake news on the behavior of voters and consumers - Provides an extended critique of the Anthropocene Epoch, and the prospect of geo-engineering Earth to become a synthetic environment. (shrink)

This paper analyses the British Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's 2002 public consultation on sex selection, a consultation that was mainly concerned with sex selection for non-medical reasons. Based on a close reading of the consultation document and questionnaire it is argued that the consultation is biased towards certain outcomes and can most plausibly be construed as an attempt not to investigate but to influence public opinion.

This paper analyses the question what other healthcare professions should learn from nursing ethics, e.g. what should medical ethics learn from nursing ethics. I first analyse and reject all strong versions of the claim that nursing ethics is unique, because nursing is a unique practice. I then move to the question of whether the link between nursing ethics and nursing theory can be a model for other areas of healthcare ethics. I provide an analysis of the possibility of creating a (...) theory of medicine and find that there cannot be a theory of medicine, and I argue briefly that this finding is also applicable to nursing. If there cannot be a theory of nursing, this entails that nursing ethics cannot be justifiably based on such a theory. In the final section, I then analyse the success of nursing ethics in resisting certain of the vices of Anglo‐American analytic ethics, in particular the reductionism and individualism that characterizes much of healthcare ethics. I conclude that other healthcare ethics could usefully learn from this aspect of nursing ethics. (shrink)

Violations of ethical conductThis article is about torture, power and the breach of ethical conduct among military doctors, nurses and medics in the “War on Terror”. Violations of ethical conduct have been widely recounted in academic and non-academic journals and reports.1 This paper is also a call to international boards of doctors and nurses to intervene directly to stop abuses undertaken by US military healthcare providers under the guise of the War on Terror. With evidence growing that US military and (...) security services are actively engaged in the ill treatment, torture and deaths of suspects, details about the participation of healthcare professionals in such unlawful and unethical activities remain for the most part timidly accounted for. But according to current literature on this topic, there is increasing evidence that US doctors, nurses and medics have been complicit in torture and other unethical activities in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay .2–4The US government has inadequately dealt with these facts. Senior officials in the Bush administration who have played a major part in conducting the War on Terror have been either promoted or asked to remain in their posts. More seriously, despite worldwide condemnation of the reality behind the photos, allegations of torture continue at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.5 The graphic and appalling nature of several photographs are by no means the only evidence of abuses conducted by the US on its own territory and abroad. But the complicity of healthcare professionals in many venues , such as in capital punishment procedures in the US, exacerbates the already disturbing extent of bio-political abuses by the US government.Doctors and nurses often top the polls as caring and trustworthy professionals.6 Indeed, so strong …. (shrink)

Tom Shakespeare’s book Disability rights and wrongs is very rich and interesting and ought to be compulsory reading for anyone interested in the relation between disability and medical ethics.1In my short contribution to this symposium on the book, I will focus on a particular aspect of his discussion of prenatal diagnosis and termination of pregnancy.In chapter 6 of Disability rights and wrongs, a chapter entitled Questioning prenatal diagnosis, the author discusses a wide range of issues concerning the relation between disability (...) and prenatal diagnosis. One of the arguments he discusses is the so-called “expressivist objection” to prenatal diagnosis—that is, the claim that prenatal diagnosis expresses a discriminatory or negative attitude towards people with disability. After having analysed the expressivist objection, Shakespeare, in line with a range of other authors, concludes that the argument is not sound: Nor should we interpret a decision to have a test or a termination as expressing disrespect or discrimination towards disabled people.1Is it thus time now to lay the expressivist objection to rest? In the following, I will suggest that it may be too early to completely dismiss the objection, partially because it is often misrepresented by its opponents, who argue against implausibly strong versions of the objection.THE OBJECTION UNFOLDEDWhat does the expressivist objection essentially claim? The core of the claim is, as described above, that prenatal diagnosis and termination of pregnancy expresses certain attitudes towards disabled people. What is taken to express these attitudes may be the social practice of prenatal diagnosis and termination of pregnancy either …. (shrink)

The possibility of creating human embryonic stem cell lines from the inner cell mass of blastocysts has led to considerable debate about how these scientific developments should be regulated. Part of this debate has focused on the ethical analysis and part on how this analysis should influence policymaking.

BackgroundEthical problems in everyday healthcare work emerge for many reasons and constitute threats to ethical values. If these threats are not managed appropriately, there is a risk that the patient may be inflicted with moral harm or injury, while healthcare professionals are at risk of feeling moral distress. Therefore, it is essential to support the learning and development of ethical competencies among healthcare professionals and students. The aim of this study was to explore the available literature regarding ethics education that (...) promotes ethical competence learning for healthcare professionals and students undergoing training in healthcare professions.MethodsIn this integrative systematic review, literature was searched within the PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycInfo databases using the search terms ‘health personnel’, ‘students’, ‘ethics’, ‘moral’, ‘simulation’, and ‘teaching’. In total, 40 articles were selected for review. These articles included professionals from various healthcare professions and students who trained in these professions as subjects. The articles described participation in various forms of ethics education. Data were extracted and synthesised using thematic analysis.ResultsThe review identified the need for support to make ethical competence learning possible, which in the long run was considered to promote the ability to manage ethical problems. Ethical competence learning was found to be helpful to healthcare professionals and students in drawing attention to ethical problems that they were not previously aware of. Dealing with ethical problems is primarily about reasoning about what is right and in the patient’s best interests, along with making decisions about what needs to be done in a specific situation.ConclusionsThe review identified different designs and course content for ethics education to support ethical competence learning. The findings could be used to develop healthcare professionals’ and students’ readiness and capabilities to recognise as well as to respond appropriately to ethically problematic work situations. (shrink)

Environmental Ethics is a systematic account of values carried by the natural world, coupled with an inquiry into duties toward animals, plants, species, and ecosystems. A comprehensive philosophy of nature is illustrated by and integrated with numerous actual examples of ethical decisions made in encounters with fauna and flora, endangered species, and threatened ecosystems. The ethics developed is informed throughout by ecological science and evolutionary biology, with attention to the logic of moving from what is in nature to what ought (...) to be. The ethical theory is applied in detail to social, public, and business policy. Written in an engaging style, using diagrams and figures as well as numerous case studies, Environmental Ethics prods the reader into concrete application and invites reader participation in the ethical discussions. The ethics concludes by exploring the historical experiences of personal residence in a surrounding environment. Here is an adventure into what it means to live as responsible human beings in the community of life on Earth. In the series Ethics and Action, edited by Tom Regan. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate intergroup conflict and examine the impact of strategies to manage and hopefully reduce it. To do this, we use a probabilistic computer simulation model, based on feedback principles. The model examines how conflict between two groups evolves over time. Group differences and the occurrence of intergroup incidents drive the model. Intergroup hostility which depends on past history, recent conflict incidents, and group differences is the key variable that indicates the proclivity toward conflict between the two (...) groups. We use the model to examine various cases and the effect of conflict management strategies. Based on the model results, we develop some conclusions about the applicability of the findings to actual situations, as well as directions for further research. (shrink)

The discovery of an alternative method of producing induced human stem cells will affect the ethical evaluation of human embryonic stem cell researchOn 20 November 2007 two groups of researchers announced that they had independently managed to produce induced Pluripotent Cells from human adult somatic cells.1 2 The two groups used slightly different procedures, but both approaches involved overexpression of a group of four genes known to be actively expressed in human embryonic stem cells . The cells produced are very (...) similar to human embryonic stem cells, they are pluripotent and they differentiate to specific cell types when treated according to protocols leading to that specific differentiation in hESC.WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF THESE RESULTS FOR STEM CELL ETHICS?There seems to be at least two areas of debate and research where there are important implications and one area where there are none.Let us deal with the area where these results have absolutely no implications first: the contentious debate about the moral status of the embryo. Nothing in these research results will or can affect the position of those who believe that they have good arguments showing either that the embryo has no moral status at all, or that the embryo has such significant moral status that …. (shrink)

This paper presents an exposition of subsystems and of Quine's , originally defined and shown to be consistent by Crabbé, along with related systems and of type theory. A proof that (and so ) interpret the ramified theory of types is presented (this is a simplified exposition of a result of Crabbé). The new result that the consistency strength of is the same as that of is demonstrated. It will also be shown that cannot be finitely axiomatized (as can and (...) ). (shrink)

Some very bad old arguments need removing from NICE’s latest reportLet me begin this editorial by reassuring readers that the journal does not hold any deep seated grudge against the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence . However, because the pronouncements of NICE are of great importance to the future of health care in England, and to a lesser extent in the other nations of the United Kingdom, and because NICE is often held up as a model for other (...) countries to follow we feel that we have to comment when these pronouncements are less than ethically excellent. And in 2005 NICE just happened to have a particularly bad year with regard to the cogency of its ethical arguments, and this flow of bad argument extended right to the end of the year.In December 2005 NICE published a report with the title Social Value Judgments—Principles for the Development of NICE Guidance, which considered whether social background, age, or lifestyle choices should ever influence NICE guidance concerning the health care provided by the National Health Service .1 This report was endorsed by the NICE board and its guidelines are binding on all panels developing specific NICE guidance.Here I want to focus on three areas of this report: The relevance of self inflicted conditions The relevance of socioeconomic status The relevance of stigmaI will not comment on NICE’s methodology in coming to these conclusions, since that is the subject of a paper by John McMillan and colleagues, which is published in this issue of the journal.2With regard to self inflicted conditions NICE has now bound itself to the following principle:PRINCIPLE 10Principle 10 states that:"NICE and its advisory bodies should avoid denying care to patients with conditions that are, or may be, self … ". (shrink)