To Friend or Not to Friend: A Difficult Question

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Misty M. Glover ◽  
Michelle E. Ronayne ◽  
Johnny P. Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
Difficult Question

The Priority of Public Reasons and Religious Forms of Life in Constitutional Democracies

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Cristina Lafont
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
Political Deliberation ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Right ◽  
Mutual Accountability

In this essay I address the difficult question of how citizens with conflicting religious and secular views can fulfill the democratic obligation of justifying the imposition of coercive policies to others with reasons that they can also accept. After discussing the difficulties of proposals that either exclude religious beliefs from public deliberation or include them without any restrictions, I argue instead for a policy of mutual accountability that imposes the same deliberative rights and obligations on all democratic citizens. The main advantage of this proposal is that it recognizes the right of all democratic citizens to adopt their own cognitive stance (whether religious or secular) in political deliberation in the public sphere without giving up on the democratic obligation to provide reasons acceptable to everyone to justify coercive policies with which all citizens must comply.

Inscriptions and Literacy

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Bodel
Keyword(s):  
Archaic Period ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
Methodological Problems

The study of ancient reading and writing practices must begin with inscriptions. This chapter charts the recent debates about the concept of literacy in the Roman world. Setting out from the archaic period, it shows how inscriptions have a key role to play in any assessment of the difficult question of levels of literacy, while at the same time highlighting some of the methodological problems involved in such enquiries. The chapter concludes with a brief exploration of topics ripe for further study .

scholarly journals Automatic Placement of Genomic Research Results in Medical Records: Do Researchers Have a Duty? Should Participants Have a Choice?

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 827-842
Author(s):  
Anya E.R. Prince ◽  
John M. Conley ◽  
Arlene M. Davis ◽  
Gabriel Lázaro-Muñoz ◽  
R. Jean Cadigan
Keyword(s):  
Medical Record ◽  
Medical Records ◽  
Genomic Research ◽  
Research Results ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
Automatic Placement ◽  
Study Participants ◽  
Research Studies

The growing practice of returning individual results to research participants has revealed a variety of interpretations of the multiple and sometimes conflicting duties that researchers may owe to participants. One particularly difficult question is the nature and extent of a researcher’s duty to facilitate a participant’s follow-up clinical care by placing research results in the participant’s medical record. The question is especially difficult in the context of genomic research. Some recent genomic research studies — enrolling patients as participants — boldly address the question with protocols dictating that researchers place research results directly into study participants’ existing medical records, without participant consent. Such privileging of researcher judgment over participant choice may be motivated by a desire to discharge a duty that researchers perceive themselves as owing to participants. However, the underlying ethical, professional, legal, and regulatory duties that would compel or justify this action have not been fully explored.

scholarly journals A militant defence of democracy: A few replies to my critics

2020 ◽  
pp. 019145372097472
Author(s):  
Cristina Lafont
Keyword(s):  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The Core ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
Proper Role

In this essay, I address some questions and challenges brought about by the contributors to this special issue on my book ‘ Democracy without Shortcuts’. First, I clarify different aspects of my critique of deep pluralist conceptions of democracy to highlight the core incompatibilities with the participatory conception of deliberative democracy that I defend in the book. Second, I distinguish different senses of the concept of ‘blind deference’ that I use in the book to clarify several aspects and consequences of my critique of epistocratic conceptions of democracy and their search for ‘expertocratic shortcuts’. This in turn helps me briefly address the difficult question of the proper role of experts in a democracy. Third, I address potential uses of empowered minipublics that I did not discuss in the book and highlight some reasons to worry about their lack of accountability. This discussion in turn leads me to address the difficult question of which institutions are best suited to represent the transgenerational collective people who are supposed to own a constitutional project. Finally, I address some interesting suggestions for how to move the book’s project forward.

scholarly journals The Meaning of the Phrase τα στοιχεια του κοσμου in Galatians

2007 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARTINUS C. DE BOER
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
The Law

This article seeks a fresh answer to the difficult question of the meaning of the phrase τα στοιχεια του κοσμου in Gal 4.3. The answer is sought by paying close attention to (1) the argumentative context of Paul's use of the phrase in the letter (he posits some sort of equivalence between the veneration of τα στοιχεια του κοσμου and the observance of the Law; he does so for contextually relevant theological and rhetorical reasons), and (2) the cultural-historical context of the addressees, the Gentile believers in Galatia (τα στοιχεια are ‘the gods’ they once venerated; this veneration involved calendrical observances).

Heraclitus’ Political Thought

Apeiron ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 405-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Maximilian Robitzsch
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Political Realm

Abstract This paper deals with Heraclitus’ political thought. First, in discussing the conception of cosmic justice, it argues that it is a mistake to separate Heraclitus’ political thought from his cosmological thought. Second, the paper works out two basic principles of Heraclitean political thinking by offering a close analysis of fragment B 114 as well as related texts. According to Heraclitus, (1) there is a standard common and relevant to all human beings in the political realm, namely, the logos, and (2) ruling well is a matter of grasping the logos and using it as a guide in all things political. Finally, the paper tackles the notoriously difficult question of whether there are certain forms of political order towards which Heraclitean thought is more or less inclined. According to what may be called the traditional view, Heraclitus is seen as a supporter of an aristocratic political order, while according to what may be called the revisionist view, Heraclitus is classified as a supporter of a democratic political order. The paper concludes that while Heraclitean philosophy is compatible with a plethora of different forms of political order, including democratic ones, the two basic principles of Heraclitean politics that were distinguished above are more conducive to aristocratic forms of political order.

Eine komplexe Friedenstheologie und Friedensethik

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Mierzwa
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
The State ◽  
Ethical Approach ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Preferential Option ◽  
Religionless Christianity ◽  
The Relationship

Peace has to be thought of in a more complex way, which is mainly stimulated by women from civil society. Many questions can no longer be addressed in a thematically and politically isolated or delimited way; chains of action and challenges are too interwoven. So far, too little attention has been paid to the preferential option for the poor, the approach of religionless Christianity and a feminist-liberation-theological-pacifist approach. Topics that are more marginal, such as a peace-ethical approach to money and the relationship between peace and health, are also addressed. Finally, the difficult question of how far one may still cooperate with the state when one is on the trail of peace is explored.

Evaluating legacy: the who, what, why, when and where of evaluation for community research

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Matthews ◽  
Janice Astbury ◽  
Julie Brown ◽  
Laura Brown ◽  
Steve Connelly ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Research ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Positive Outcomes ◽  
Community Groups ◽  
Difficult Question

Evaluation is often anathema the co-produced research and community groups. For the latter, onerous evaluation requirements from funders can be the bane of their lives. In terms of co-produced research, that evaluation often positions an expert in authority to judge whether an activity has been a “success” is the opposite to the trusting relationship much co-produced research is trying to develop. This chapter suggests that evaluation, when done well, can and should be a more central practice in co-produced research. Importantly, it is suggested that by asking the difficult question of “what positive outcomes are we producing?” the evaluation of co-produced research can make it more ethical, and develop a learning approach among partners.

scholarly journals XXVI.—Treatment of Aneurysm by Electrolysis.

1908 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 400-402
Author(s):  
Dawson Turner
Keyword(s):  
Surgical Treatment ◽  
Blood Serum ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
Actual Effect

MANY attempts have been made to utilise electrolysis in aneurysms, especially in those thoracic ones that are not amenable to ordinary surgical treatment; it has been hoped that the clotting which occurs around the poles might serve as a nucleus for further coagulation and deposits of fibrin, and that the aneurysm cavity might in this way become partially filled up. Such attempts have not met with much success hitherto, and the purpose of this research has been to endeavour to determine by experiments on blood serum outside the body what the actual effect of electrolysis is so far as regards clotting. Various methods of electrolysing the blood in an aneurysm have been used by surgeons. Ciniselli introduced needles connected with both poles, and reversed the direction of the current every five minutes; of 38 cases so treated, 27 were ameliorated, but none were cured. In the unipolar method one pole only was introduced, and the other was connected with an indifferent pad placed in the vicinity. The difficult question was which pole to introduce. The positive pole gave the firmest clot, but it was thought that it might be difficult to withdraw, and that hæmorrhage or even rupture of the vessel might follow.

scholarly journals Limestone quarries and cave protection

Ecocycles ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 18-22
Author(s):  
Szabolcs Leél-Őssy
Keyword(s):  
Economic Loss ◽  
Limestone Quarry ◽  
The Real ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
Value Of Nature ◽  
Limestone Quarries

It happened in Hungary several times that a limestone quarry opened the entrance of a new, unknown cave during its activity such as the case was in the Villány Mountains, in Budapest, and in Kesel?, Naszály or Esztramos Hills. It is right that the natural caves are protected, but what is the solution in such cases? Closing the mine? Absolving the cave from protection? It is a difficult question. The real way: we must weigh. Which is more expensive? How valuable and unique is the cave? How big is the economic loss if we close the mine? And how serious is the harm if it is allowed to annihilate the value of nature, which is impossible to reproduce? Examples follow from Hungary.

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