This paper examines the concept of moral responsibility as it applies to the actions of corporations. I argue that it is both conceptually and morally appropriate to hold corporations morally responsible for some of their actions, and I attempt to show that arguments to the contrary are unsound. Although I hold that corporations may legitimately be held morally responsible I also argue that one can expect capitalist corporations to follow moral principles only to a rather limited extent.

The method of Wide Reflective Equilibrium (WRE) has been defended by Kai Nielsen as an exciting new development in the search for a device for increasing our ability to choose between competing moral conceptions. Nonetheless, this confidence will be seen as misplaced unless serious issues are resolved. Lack of clarity surrounds the questions: (1) What is the claimed epistemological role for WRE? (2) What version of WRE is to be employed? In this paper I resolve these ambiguities in a way which supports Kai Nielsen's claim. First, however, I should specify in broad terms the method of WRE.

At the heart of the argument in Kymlicka's book is a principle which is characteristic of liberalism as he conceives it: attachments to a community and to the culture that it embodies are to be honoured as indispensable to intelligible personal choice (p. 47–58, 165–66, 192–93), so long as everyone with the attachments is free to examine them critically and then revise them in any or all of their features (p. 13, 48, 50–51, 167, 172). In one part of the book, the argument moves inward—diastolically—aiming, as the heart is approached, to expose various communitarian objections to liberalism as mistakes about the conditions that liberalism accepts for intelligible personal choice. In the other part of the book, the argument moves outward—systolically—aiming to demonstrate the robust support that liberalism can give the cultures of minority communities like Canadian Indians even when that support requires some restriction of the liberties of other people.

There is overwhelming consensus today that passively allowing someone to die in medical contexts is sometimes morally permissible and desirable. Active euthanasia, however, remains controversial. The legal systems and the medical establishments of both the United States and Canada maintain absolute, formal prohibitions against direct killing in medical settings. This clearly reflects the deep-seated belief, evident throughout our cultural and religious history, that there is some important moral difference between killing and allowing to die. Yet much that has been written recently on this topic by philosophers has denied moral relevance for this distinction. While this general conclusion appears to have gained popularity, especially within philosophy, the reasons advanced for it seem inconclusive to some. In what follows I examine the principal philosophical argument for the claim of irrelevance. I then develop an alternative view that, to my knowledge, has not been distinctly articulated in the current literature. I begin, however, with a preliminary discussion of the intuitive basis of the distinction between killing and letting die.

Abortion has long been a central issue in the arena of applied ethics, but, the distinctive analysis of feminist ethics is generally overlooked in most philosophic discussions. Authors and readers commonly presume a familiarity with the feminist position and equate it with liberal defences of women's right to choose abortion, but, in fact, feminist ethics yields a different analysis of the moral questions surrounding abortion than that usually offered by the more familiar liberal defenders of abortion rights. Most feminists can agree with some of the conclusions that arise from certain non-feminist arguments on abortion, but they often disagree about the way the issues are formulated and the sorts of reasons that are invoked in the mainstream literature.

This is an ambitious and frustrating book. Among the many virtues which Moser claims for it are all of the following: (a) it answers the need to counteract certain “epistemologically harmful muddles with careful distinctions and arguments” (p. 2); (b) it provides the reader with a “forceful” reply to both justification scepticism and knowledge scepticism and argues that both can be “effectively challenged, if not refuted” (p. 3); (c) it “solves” the Gettier problem (p. 233); and (d) it not only removes the “normative mystery” from epistemic concepts such as knowledge and justification, but provides a meta-justification which will allow us, the readers, to see why the theoretical account offered in its pages is preferable to its competitors (p. 2–3). It is worth mentioning that the competitors over whom Moser claims his theory has a “dialectical edge” (p. 3) include accounts authored by Chisholm, Lehrer, Goldman, Alston, Bonjour, Rorty, Foley and Stroud. As I said, this is an ambitious book.

It is obvious that teaching and research in informal logic (critical thinking, rhetoric) is a growth industry, indeed one of burgeoning proportions. Judging by skyrocketing enrolments and the avalanche of books, journals, computer aids, conferences, and workshops during the last decade, it would seem to be no passing fad but the overdue recognition of a societal need.

Les prélèvements et les transplantations de tissus et d'organes renvoient à des problèmes très variés au plan éthique en raison des types d'organes ou de tissus prélevés et transplantés, du statut du donneur et enfin de la finalité du prélèvement. Soyons plus précis: aujourd'hui, on prélève en vue d'une transplantation: les reins, le cœur, les poumons, le foie, le pancréas, la cornée mais aussi, la moelle osseuse, la peau. On prélève à diverses fins — thérapeutique ou de recherche — : le sang, la rate, les cellules embryonnaires, les gamètes. Le donneur quant à lui, suivant les organes prélevés, sera: vivant ou mort, adulte, enfant, nouveau-né anencéphale ou embryon.

Paul Thompson's new book, The Structure of Biological Theories, is about the formalization of evolutionary biology. He is primarily concerned, he says, with the logical, epistemological, and methodological aspects of biological theorizing. The main theme of the book is the opposition between what Thompson calls the syntactic and the semantic conceptions of theories. He wishes to establish that the semantic account is superior to the syntactic in at least three areas: first, it offers a more faithful account of population biology; second, it facilitates a conception of evolutionary biology as a family of interacting theories; finally, it offers us a richer framework for the resolution of methodological problems that have plagued sociobiology and evolutionary epistemology.

Two important debates have characterized mainstream epistemology in recent years. The first is the debate between foundationalists and anti-foundationalists. The second is the debate over the details of a naturalized epistemology. Both debates have meant that traditional concepts of rationality and justification are now understood in a new light. Both debates have helped focus attention on the future direction of epistemology, its goals and its limitations.

This collection of essays, written over the past fifteen years by one of the more intrepid defenders of current Darwinian theory, contains material that will be of interest both to historians and philosophers of science and, since Ruse writes well and in an accessible manner, to an even wider audience. A preliminary glance at the contents primes one to expect to be both engaged and provoked; one is not disappointed. The essays include historical speculation on some of the views of Charles Darwin, a defence of human sociobiology and discussion of its feminist critique, punctuated equilibria theory, teleology in biology, extraterrestrial biology and moral theory, the plate tectonic revolution in geology, and the relationship between evolutionary theory and Christian ethics.

Après avoir, en préambule, défini l'expérimentation humaine au sens qui est ici visé, j'identifierai le don qu'elle implique au sein d'une chaîne de solidarité, puis j'analyserai quelques difficultés auxquelles donne lieu l'intégration culturelle de cette démarche de partage, enfin je mettrai en évidence un conflit entre solidarité et autonomie.

Je crois utile de préciser d'emblée que le champ concret que j'ai eu à l'esprit en rédigeant ce texte est d'abord celui du prélèvement et de la transplantation d'organes et de tissus, moins systématiquement celui de la disposition de produits du corps (sang, gamètes, voire embryons), de façon plus lointaine enfin celui de l'expérimentation humaine. Dans les deux premières problématiques surtout, «certaines choses» dont le statut est très spécial s'échangent entre des personnes.

What would be a genuinely caring approach to the provision of procedures of so-called artificial reproduction such as in vitro fertilization (IVF)? What are appropriate and justified social policies with respect to attempting to enable infertile persons to have offspring? These urgent questions have provoked significant disagreements among theologians, sociologists, healthcare providers, philosophers and even — or especially — among feminists. In the existing literature and in developing social policy, three different kinds of answers can be discerned. (1) Some have suggested that access to IVF should be provided as a matter of right. (2) Some existing social policies and practices imply that access to IVF is a privilege. (3) Some theorists have argued that, because of its alleged violation of family values and marital security, or because of its risks, costs, and low success rate, IVF should not be available at all. After evaluating each of these views, I shall offer a feminist alternative, describing what I think would constitute the caring provision of in vitro fertilization.