Der kommunikativen Alltagspraxis müssen kognitive Deutungen, moralische Erwartungen, Expressionen und Wertungen einander durchdringen. Die Verständigungsprozesse der Lebenswelt bedürfen deshalb einer kulturellen Überlieferung auf ganzer Breite, nicht nur der Segnungen von Wissenschaft und Technik. So könnte die Philosophie ihren Bezug zur Totalität in einer der Lebenswelt zugewandten Interpretenrolle aktualisieren. Sie könnte mindestens dabei helfen, das stillgestellte Zusammenspiel des Kognitiv-Instrumentellen mit dem Moralisch-Praktischen und dem Ästhetisch-Expressiven wie ein Mobile, das sich hartnäckig verhakt hat, wieder in Bewegung zu setzen.

After a decade of educational reforms, The Challenge to Care in Schools is even more relevant now than when it was first published. In her new Introduction, Nel Noddings revisits her seminal book and places care as central to current debates on standardization, accountability, privatization, and the continuous struggle between traditional and progressive methods of education. Rather then forcing one side to yield to the other, this book advocates an alternative, "responsive system" that will allow the best ideas to flourish. (...) In the Second Edition, Noddings once again envisions a school system built on the idea that different people have different strengths, and that these strengths should be cultivated in an environment of caring, not of competition. She suggests that if we make the responsiveness characteristic of caring more basic than accountability, we can accommodate both traditional and progressive preferences in one school system to the benefit of all... especially the children. Chapters address the practical and theoretical questions involved in organizing traditional and nontraditional areas of study around themes of care. Introductory chapters focus on caring in general and on the problems of liberal education, while the final chapter offers sound advice for implementing a caring curriculum in our schools. (shrink)

In 1785, George Washington described a “knowing farmer” as “one who can convert every thing he touches into manure, as the first transmutation towards Gold.” With these words, Washington linked the “knowing farmer” to the alchemist who endeavored to transform base metals into gold with the aid of a philosopher's stone. In each instance, the challenge was to convert raw materials into something new and precious.Today, the “knowing bioethicist” is in a similar position. American bioethics harbors a variety of ethical (...) methods that emphasize different ethical factors, including principles, circumstances, character, interpersonal needs, and personal meaning. Each method reflects an important aspect of ethical experience, adds to the others, and enriches the ethical imagination. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Principles of Biomedical Ethics. By Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress.

_Ethics and the University_ brings together two closely related topics, the practice of ethics in the university and the teaching of practical or applied ethics in the university. This volume is divided into four parts: * A survey of practical ethics, offering an explanation of its recent emergence as a university subject, situating that subject into a wider social and historical context and identifying some problems that the subject generates for universities * An examination of research ethics, including the problem (...) of plagiarism * A discussion of the teaching of practical ethics. Michael Davis explores how ethics can be integrated into the university curriculum and what part particular cases should play in the teaching of ethics * An exploration of sexual ethics _Ethics and the University_ provides a stimulating and provocative analysis of academic ethics which will be useful to students, academics and practitioners. (shrink)

Western society today is less unified by a set of core values than ever before. Undoubtedly, the concept of moral consensus is a difficult one in a liberal, democratic and pluralistic society. But it is imperative to avoid a rigid majoritarianism where sensitive personal values are at stake, as in bioethics. Bioethics has become an influential part of public and professional discussions of health care. It has helped frame issues of moral values and medicine as part of a more general (...) effort to find consensus about some of the most perplexing questions of our time. But why is it thought that a moral consensus is important or that it deserves respect? How does moral consensus acquire legitimacy in a society that includes diverse value systems? How is moral consensus possible and how do small groups help create or distort consensus processes? Written by a medical school professor trained in philosophy, this timely work tackles these questions from philosophical, historical, and social scientific standpoints. It begins by describing the traditional ambivalence about consensus in Western culture as well as the uncertain relationship in modernity between consensus and expertise. After outlining the current bioethical consensus, the book gives philosophical and political analyses of the idea of consensus, then assesses the role of consensus in national ethics commissions and in the ethics committee movement. Moreno constructs an original, naturalistic philosophy of moral consensus, referred to as "bioethical naturalism", and then applies sociology and social psychology to actual consensus processes. The book concludes with an account of bioethics as a consensus-oriented social reform movement. This insightful volume will be essential reading for bioethicists, philosophers, physicians, members of ethics committees, and all those concerned with ethical and social issues in health care. (shrink)

Towards Justice and Virtue challenges the rivalry between those who advocate only abstract, universal principles of justice and those who commend only the particularities of virtuous lives. Onora O'Neill traces this impasse to defects in underlying conceptions of reasoning about action. She proposes and vindicates a modest account of ethical reasoning and a reasoned way of answering the question 'who counts?', then uses these to construct linked accounts of principles by which we can move towards just institutions and virtuous lives.

In 1785, George Washington described a “knowing farmer” as “one who can convert every thing he touches into manure, as the first transmutation towards Gold.” With these words, Washington linked the “knowing farmer” to the alchemist who endeavored to transform base metals into gold with the aid of a philosopher's stone. In each instance, the challenge was to convert raw materials into something new and precious.Today, the “knowing bioethicist” is in a similar position. American bioethics harbors a variety of ethical (...) methods that emphasize different ethical factors, including principles, circumstances, character, interpersonal needs, and personal meaning. Each method reflects an important aspect of ethical experience, adds to the others, and enriches the ethical imagination. (shrink)

Towards Justice and Virtue is Onora O’Neill’s most developed account thus far of her distinctive approach to moral and political philosophy. Readers who are already familiar with O’Neill’s articles and her two previous books will appreciate the way it brings together in one sustained and rigorous argument the various themes which have occupied her attention over the years. Those who are new to O’Neill’s work will find in it a lucid, accessible, and provocative challenge to contemporary ethical theories.