Priority setting in health care is ubiquitous and health authorities are increasingly recognising the need for priority setting guidelines to ensure efficient, fair, and equitable resource allocation. While cost-effectiveness concerns seem to dominate many policies, the tension between utilitarian and deontological concerns is salient to many, and various severity criteria appear to fill this gap. Severity, then, must be subjected to rigorous ethical and philosophical analysis. Here we first give a brief history of the path to today’s severity criteria in (...) Norway and Sweden. The Scandinavian perspective on severity might be conducive to the international discussion, given its long-standing use as a priority setting criterion, despite having reached rather different conclusions so far. We then argue that severity can be viewed as a multidimensional concept, drawing on accounts of need, urgency, fairness, duty to save lives, and human dignity. Such concerns will often be relative to local mores, and the weighting placed on the various dimensions cannot be expected to be fixed. Thirdly, we present what we think are the most pertinent questions to answer about severity in order to facilitate decision making in the coming years of increased scarcity, and to further the understanding of underlying assumptions and values that go into these decisions. We conclude that severity is poorly understood, and that the topic needs substantial further inquiry; thus we hope this article may set a challenging and important research agenda. (shrink)

La régularité est traitée non pas comme une propriété primitive de certains événements du monde, mais comme une relation d'implication entre une situation S et une événement E. La régularité, aussi bien dans les descriptions du monde que dans les comportements, n'est pas expliquée en termes de règles abstraites (il n'a a pas un "secret de la règle" à percer) mais à travers ses trois manifestations : conventions, règles individuelles et énoncés normatifs. Table des matières : I. De la régularité (...) en général : 1. Régularité et répétition - 2. Régularité et causalité - 3. Régularité et probabilité - 4. Régularité et nécessité - 5. La régularité comme relation irréductible - 6. Régularités sans « règle abstraite » : conventions, règles individuelles et énoncés normatifs ; II. Conventions : 1. Un sens restreint pour le terme - 2. Les conventions et l’équilibre par coordination - 3. Connaissance partagée et intersubjectivité - 4. La construction des représentations intersubjectives - 5. Représentations langagières intersubjectives et comportements non langagiers 6. Les conventions et la connaissance de la situation S 7. Les limites des conventions ; III. Règles individuelles : 1. La place de la « règle individuelle » parmi les comportements réguliers - 2. L’observateur extérieur et ses limites face à la régularité - 3. Un exemple de règle individuelle vue de l’intérieur - 4. Règle individuelle vs. convention - 5. La convergence des règles individuelles - 6. La « normativité » dans sa manifestation la plus élémentaire ; IV. Énoncés normatifs : 1. Les énonces normatifs portant sur nos comportements et sur nos représentations - 2. La « force » des énoncés normatifs : leur forme, leur source ou leur implantation - 3. La force des énoncés normatifs scientifiques est dans leur forme - 4. La force des énoncés normatifs moraux n’est pas dans leur forme - 5. Les énoncés normatifs moraux et les règles individuelles - 6. Source et implantation des énoncés normatifs scientifiques . (shrink)

Table des matières : Introduction ; 1. La proposition : des situations aux faits ; 2. La situation, 2.1. La situation partagée, 2.2. Les limites de la situation, 2.3. Les modes d’interprétation des stimuli, 2.4. Perception directe, mémoire et témoignage ; 3. La situation n’est pas un « grand fait » composé de faits plus petits ; 4. Les faits n’existent pas indépendamment de la proposition ; 5. Le fait comme « qualité » d’une situation, 5.1. Le problème des « (...) faits négatifs », 5.2. Analogie, comparaison et métaphore; 6. Il n’y a d’autre situation que la situation actuelle, 6.1. Temps et situation actuelle, 6.2. La situation et les dépendances causales, 6.3. Les faits dans le passé et la situation actuelle, 6.4. Les faits dans le futur et la situation actuelle ; 7. Convergence et cohérence, 7.1. Convergence et pertinence, 7.2. Cohérence et vérité. (shrink)

review of Rorty's collection on evil. Generally admring, but complaining about the disparate phenomena included under the heading. And remarking on the peculiarities of the Enlish word 'evil' not found in other European languages.

In recent years, multifetal pregnancy reduction (MFPR) has increasingly been the subject of debate in Norway, and the intensity reached a tentative maximum when Legislation Department delivered the interpretative statement § 2 - Interpretation of the Abortion Act in 2016 in response to the Ministry of Health (2014) requesting the Legislation Department to consider whether the Law on abortion allows for MFPR of healthy fetuses in multiple pregnancies. The Legislation Department concluded that current abortion laws allow MFPR within the framework (...) the law otherwise stipulates. The debate has not subsided, and during autumn 2018, it was further intensified in connection with the Christian Democrat "crossroads" and signals from the Conservatives to consider removing §2.3c and to forbid MFPR. -/- Many of the arguments in the MFPR debate appear seemingly similar to arguments pending in the general abortion debate, and an analysis of what sets MFPR apart from other abortions is wanting. The aim of this article is, therefore, to examine whether there is a moral distinction between abortion and MFPR of healthy fetuses. We will cover the typical arguments of the Norwegian debate, and highlight them with scholarly articles from the literature. The most important arguments against MFPR that we have identified we have dubbed the harm argument, slippery-slope argument, intent argument, grief argument, psychological long-term effects for the woman and sorting argument. We conclude that counter-arguments do not measure up in terms of detecting a morally relevant difference between MFPR of healthy fetuses and abortions. Our conclusion is therefore that—despite what several debaters seem to think—there is no morally relevant difference between the two. Therefore, when we allow abortion, we should also allow MFPR. (shrink)

This article explores the role of weakness of will in the Indian Buddhist tradition, and in particular within Śāntideva’s Introduction to the Practice of Awakening. In agreement with Jay Garfield, I argue that there are important differences between Aristotle’s account of akrasia and Buddhist moral psychology. Nevertheless, taking a more expanded conception of weakness of will, as is frequently done in contemporary work, allows us to draw significant connections with the pluralistic account of psychological conflict found in Buddhist texts. I (...) demonstrate this by showing how Amélie Rorty’s expanded treatment of akrasia as including emotional response and perceptual classification allows us to recognize that one of the purposes of many of Śāntideva’s meditations is to treat various forms of akratic response. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that a proper understanding of the historicity of love requires an appreciation of the irreplaceability of the beloved. I do this through a consideration of ideas that were first put forward by Robert Kraut in “Love De Re” (1986). I also evaluate Amelie Rorty's criticisms of Kraut's thesis in “The Historicity of Psychological Attitudes: Love is Not Love Which Alters Not When It Alteration Finds” (1986). I argue that Rorty fundamentally misunderstands Kraut's Kripkean analogy, and (...) I go on to criticize her claim that concern over the proper object of love should be best understood as a concern over constancy. This leads me to an elaboration of the distinct senses in which love can be seen as historical. I end with a further defense of the irreplaceability of the beloved and a discussion of the relevance of recent debates over the importance of personal identity for an adequate account of the historical dimension of love. (shrink)

LEITE (Fábio Rodrigo) – STOFFEL (Jean-François), Introduction (pp. 3-6). BARRA (Eduardo Salles de O.) – SANTOS (Ricardo Batista dos), Duhem’s analysis of Newtonian method and the logical priority of physics over metaphysics (pp. 7-19). BORDONI (Stefano), The French roots of Duhem’s early historiography and epistemology (pp. 20-35). CHIAPPIN (José R. N.) – LARANJEIRAS (Cássio Costa), Duhem’s critical analysis of mecha­ni­cism and his defense of a formal conception of theoretical phy­sics (pp. 36-53). GUEGUEN (Marie) – PSILLOS (Stathis), Anti-­scepticism and epistemic humility (...) in Pierre Duhem’s philosophy of science (pp. 54-72). LISTON (Michael), Duhem : images of science, historical continuity, and the first crisis in physics (pp. 73-84). MAIOCCHI (Roberto), Duhem in pre-war Italian philos­ophy : the reasons of an absence (pp. 85-92). HERNÁNDEZ MÁRQUEZ (Víctor Manuel), Was Pierre Duhem an «esprit de finesse» ? (pp. 93-107). NEEDHAM (Paul), Was Duhem justified in not distinguishing between physical and chemical atomism ? (pp. 108-111). OLGUIN (Roberto Estrada), «Bon sens» and «noûs» (pp. 112-126). OLIVEIRA (Amelia J.), Duhem’s legacy for the change in the historiography of science : An analysis based on Kuhn’s writings (pp. 127-139). PRÍNCIPE (João), Poincaré and Duhem : Resonances in their first epistemological reflec­tions (pp. 140-156). MONDRAGON (Damián Islas), Book review of «Pierre Duhem : entre física y metafísica» (pp. 157-159). STOFFEL (Jean-François), Book review of P. Duhem : «La théorie physique : son objet, sa structure» / edit. by S. Roux (pp. 160-162). STOFFEL (Jean-François), Book review of St. Bordoni : «When historiography met epistemology» (pp. 163-165). (shrink)