Although conflated in the public mind, science and technology are separate though overlapping enterprises. While technological progress is advancing rapidly, the more philosophically oriented scientific fields are experiencing an epistemological crisis. In the following text, we examine the origins of this epistemological crisis. Although the crisis is multifactorial in origin, with the factors interacting in a nonlinear fashion, several distinct contributors can be identified. These include a decline in confidence in Western culture and a concomitant rise in exaggerated self-criticism, diminution of cause-and-effect relationships, the rise of relative truth, and a transition from an agnostic to an atheistic stance among scientists.
{"title":"What Broke Science?","authors":"C. J. Smith, Thomas H. Fischer","doi":"10.5840/ncbq20222214","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ncbq20222214","url":null,"abstract":"Although conflated in the public mind, science and technology are separate though overlapping enterprises. While technological progress is advancing rapidly, the more philosophically oriented scientific fields are experiencing an epistemological crisis. In the following text, we examine the origins of this epistemological crisis. Although the crisis is multifactorial in origin, with the factors interacting in a nonlinear fashion, several distinct contributors can be identified. These include a decline in confidence in Western culture and a concomitant rise in exaggerated self-criticism, diminution of cause-and-effect relationships, the rise of relative truth, and a transition from an agnostic to an atheistic stance among scientists.","PeriodicalId":86269,"journal":{"name":"The national Catholic bioethics quarterly","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70948547","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Political Determinants of Health by Daniel E. Dawes","authors":"Elizabeth Balskus","doi":"10.5840/ncbq202222231","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ncbq202222231","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":86269,"journal":{"name":"The national Catholic bioethics quarterly","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70948957","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In a recent issue of this journal, Steven Dezort criticizes two versions of the contralife argument, including my version and a version defended by some prominent new natural law theorists. In this essay, I argue that people should accept the contralife argument even if they disagree with other principles of new natural law theory. To defend this thesis, I correct some misstatements about the contralife argument and identify basic disagreements about defining actions and respecting human life.
{"title":"The Contralife Argument Revisted","authors":"Lawrence Masek","doi":"10.5840/ncbq202222346","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ncbq202222346","url":null,"abstract":"In a recent issue of this journal, Steven Dezort criticizes two versions of the contralife argument, including my version and a version defended by some prominent new natural law theorists. In this essay, I argue that people should accept the contralife argument even if they disagree with other principles of new natural law theory. To defend this thesis, I correct some misstatements about the contralife argument and identify basic disagreements about defining actions and respecting human life.","PeriodicalId":86269,"journal":{"name":"The national Catholic bioethics quarterly","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70949477","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Religion and Medicine: A History of the Encounter between Humanity’s Two Greatest Institutions by Jeff Levin","authors":"D. Siniora","doi":"10.5840/ncbq202222235","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ncbq202222235","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":86269,"journal":{"name":"The national Catholic bioethics quarterly","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70948780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Throughout history Christians have responded to the need for direct care for the sick in imitation of the healing ministry of Jesus and in the creation of hospitals as signs of God’s love. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a global, unprecedented modern experience of vulnerability. It has resulted in moral distress for doctors and health care workers in overwhelmed facilities. It has also revealed profound inequity in access to health care, the tragic consequences of the neglect of public health and its focus on communities, and the effects of poverty and marginalization on the risk of illness and death. This paper proposes insights from Catholic social teaching that can guide a renewal of public health by rebalancing duties to individuals and communities, and renewing medicine as a public trust. These insights can assist in reducing moral distress in scarcity.
{"title":"Moral Distress in a Pandemic and Catholic Contributions to the Renewal of Public Health","authors":"N. Kenny","doi":"10.5840/ncbq202222221","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ncbq202222221","url":null,"abstract":"Throughout history Christians have responded to the need for direct care for the sick in imitation of the healing ministry of Jesus and in the creation of hospitals as signs of God’s love. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a global, unprecedented modern experience of vulnerability. It has resulted in moral distress for doctors and health care workers in overwhelmed facilities. It has also revealed profound inequity in access to health care, the tragic consequences of the neglect of public health and its focus on communities, and the effects of poverty and marginalization on the risk of illness and death. This paper proposes insights from Catholic social teaching that can guide a renewal of public health by rebalancing duties to individuals and communities, and renewing medicine as a public trust. These insights can assist in reducing moral distress in scarcity.","PeriodicalId":86269,"journal":{"name":"The national Catholic bioethics quarterly","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70949127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Address to the Members of the Diplomatic Corps Accredited to the Holy See","authors":"P. Francis","doi":"10.5840/ncbq202222464","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ncbq202222464","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":86269,"journal":{"name":"The national Catholic bioethics quarterly","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70949708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Irene Alexander’s article in last spring’s issue of this journal criticizes the new natural law (NNL) account of sexual ethics, including Melissa Moschella’s defense of that view in a previous article also in this journal. Alexander claims that the NNL account adopts an empiricist view of nature and that NNL’s rejection of the perverted faculty argument is contrary to the Magisterium. Here Moschella responds to Alexander’s criticisms by (1) clarifying NNL theorists’ understanding of the distinction between speculative and practical reason through an explanation of Aquinas’s account of the four orders, (2) correcting Alexander’s erroneous portrayal of NNL arguments against contraception, and (3) arguing that the NNL account of sexual ethics is not only in line with magisterial teaching, but offers a better philosophical defense of that teaching than the view Alexander proposes.
{"title":"Sexual Ethics, Practical Reason, and the Magisterium","authors":"Melissa Moschella","doi":"10.5840/ncbq20222219","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ncbq20222219","url":null,"abstract":"Irene Alexander’s article in last spring’s issue of this journal criticizes the new natural law (NNL) account of sexual ethics, including Melissa Moschella’s defense of that view in a previous article also in this journal. Alexander claims that the NNL account adopts an empiricist view of nature and that NNL’s rejection of the perverted faculty argument is contrary to the Magisterium. Here Moschella responds to Alexander’s criticisms by (1) clarifying NNL theorists’ understanding of the distinction between speculative and practical reason through an explanation of Aquinas’s account of the four orders, (2) correcting Alexander’s erroneous portrayal of NNL arguments against contraception, and (3) arguing that the NNL account of sexual ethics is not only in line with magisterial teaching, but offers a better philosophical defense of that teaching than the view Alexander proposes.","PeriodicalId":86269,"journal":{"name":"The national Catholic bioethics quarterly","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70949194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
On its release, the Instruction on Respect for Human Life was accused of obstructing the technological enhancement of human life by using slippery slope arguments to impose the Magisterium’s opinion that accepting certain new technologies, like homologous artificial fertilization, would weaken resistance to practices the Church traditionally has opposed. To the contrary, the instruction calls attention to the fact that by using these technologies, we have in principle accepted all sorts of thigs, with or without technology, which are destructive of human life.
{"title":"Two Visions of Human Life and Procreation","authors":"R. Mcinerny","doi":"10.5840/ncbq20222213","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ncbq20222213","url":null,"abstract":"On its release, the Instruction on Respect for Human Life was accused of obstructing the technological enhancement of human life by using slippery slope arguments to impose the Magisterium’s opinion that accepting certain new technologies, like homologous artificial fertilization, would weaken resistance to practices the Church traditionally has opposed. To the contrary, the instruction calls attention to the fact that by using these technologies, we have in principle accepted all sorts of thigs, with or without technology, which are destructive of human life.","PeriodicalId":86269,"journal":{"name":"The national Catholic bioethics quarterly","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70948416","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
William F. Sullivan, John Heng, J. Eberl, G. Goulding, C. Jamieson, C. Labrecque
{"title":"Ethics and Pandemics","authors":"William F. Sullivan, John Heng, J. Eberl, G. Goulding, C. Jamieson, C. Labrecque","doi":"10.5840/ncbq202222227","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ncbq202222227","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":86269,"journal":{"name":"The national Catholic bioethics quarterly","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70948911","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Medicine and Shariah: A Dialogue in Islamic Bioethics by Aasim I. Padela","authors":"Brian Welter","doi":"10.5840/ncbq202222353","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ncbq202222353","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":86269,"journal":{"name":"The national Catholic bioethics quarterly","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70949449","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}