Jeffrey Spike explains the place of medical ethics within bioethics and in relation to philosophy. What I want to do in this brief introduction is (1) help define what bioethics is, (2) identify its major aspects, and (3) clarify its relationship to philosophy. To this aim I will outline how bioethics has developed three distinct …
by Ololade Olakanmi and Laura Purdy Organ transplantation saves thousands of lives every year, and is arguably one of the most significant medical innovations of the past century. At present however, the worldwide demand for organs far outstrips supply. For instance, in 2004, the United Network for Organ Sharing (United States) found that over 100,000 …
Kidney specialist Mahendra Govani recommends a particular variety of evolved ethical behaviour. During the recorded and unrecorded evolutionary march towards happiness, the ultimate goal, humanity has mastered many mountains, walked through a variety of valleys, and tumbled into dozens of dreadful ditches. However, one can argue that in the arena of social and ethical development …
Robert Card on the ethics of medical care at the end of life. It is natural for humans to want control over their own lives. Since death is an inevitable part of being human, it is also understandable that people want control over the circumstances of their own death, if at all possible. As the …
Landon D.C. Elkind explains why Russell believed logic can set thought free. Using Bertrand Russell’s remarks on something as a foil, I shall try to explain why he thought studying logic and philosophy is valuable. As almost any Russellian knows, Russell abhorred teaching Aristotelian logic, also called traditional logic. To take two quotes: “If you …
John Ongley investigates what Bertrand Russell thought about human reason. The economist John Maynard Keynes once said of his Cambridge friends in the years before World War I – including the philosophers Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore – that while their conversations were all bright, amusing and clever, there was “no solid diagnosis of human …
Tony Simpson tells us how the Russell-Einstein manifesto led to Pugwash. “He was not only a great scientist but a great man, a man whom it is good to have known and consoling to contemplate.” With these words Bertrand Russell concluded his Preface to Einstein on Peace (1960). Down the years, Russell and Albert Einstein …
Tim Delaney finds joy in Bertrand Russell’s The Conquest of Happiness. In 1930, Bertrand Russell published The Conquest of Happiness, a book that predates the contemporary fascination with self-help publications by decades. It was described by Russell in the Preface as “not addressed to highbrows, or to those who regard a practical problem merely as …
Vincent Kavaloski reviews both Tolstoy’s insights and his oversight. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”(United States Declaration of Independence, 1776) Do we all pursue happiness? Should …
John R. Lenz tells us why Russell thought philosophy worthwhile. Bertrand Russell did a disservice to philosophy by defining the word. Early in his career he defined philosophy as the logical-analytic method. This definition was so restricting that although he spent the next fifty years writing one book after another on topics such as war, …
Bertrand Russell on The Value of Philosophy for Life Read More »