Council's View Research Articles

A critique of the Guardian Council's view on the development of the authorities mentioned in Article 142 of the Constitution

A critique of the Guardian Council's view on the development of the authorities mentioned in Article 142 of the Constitution

Cognitive Enhancement: Promises and Perils

The potential use of drugs to enhance cognition, emotion, and executive function has engendered controversy despite the fact that few such agents exist today. Here, I provide a context for discussions based on medical, regulatory, and ethical concerns that have been raised by the possibility that enhancers will emerge from current efforts to discover drugs for neuropsychiatric disorders.

Proclamation as Dialogue: Transition in the Church—World Relationship

Vatican Il's Gaudium et spes sees the church-world relationship in dialogical terms. This article argues that conceiving the church-world relationship as a dialogue is an important element in the council's recognition of what Charles Taylor calls the “modern social imaginary.” The article defends the council's view of dialogue against the argument that contemporary Western views of dialogue are inherently relativist. It concludes by investigating the rich implications of this dialogical view for the church's primary task of proclamation.

POTENTIALITY AND HUMAN EMBRYOS

Consideration of the potentiality of human embryos to develop characteristics of personhood, such as intellect and will, has figured prominently in arguments against abortion and the use of human embryos for research. In particular, such consideration was the basis for the call of the US President's Council on Bioethics for a moratorium on stem cell research on human embryos. In this paper, I critique the concept of potentiality invoked by the Council and offer an alternative account. In contrast to the Council's view that an embryo's potentiality is determined by definition and is not affected by external conditions that may prevent certain possibilities from ever being realized, I propose an empirically grounded account of potentiality that involves an assessment of the physical and decisional conditions that may restrict an embryo's possibilities. In my view, some human embryos lack the potentiality to become a person that other human embryos have. Assuming for the sake of argument that the potential to become a person gives a being special moral status, it follows that some human embryos lack this status. This argument is then used to support Gene Outka's suggestion that it is morally permissible to experiment on 'spare' frozen embryos that are destined to be destroyed.

The Church Unfinished: Ecclesiology through the Centuries (review)

Reviewed by Patrick Granfield The Catholic University of America The Church Unfinished: Ecclesiology through the Centuries. By Bernard P. Prusak. (Mahwah, New Jersey:Paulist Press. 2004. Pp. x, 404. $22.95 paperback.) [End Page 631] Understanding the complex nature of the Christian Church has been a continual challenge for theologians throughout the ages. Bernard P. Prusak of Villanova University has joined their ranks with his history of ecclesiology which emphasizes an eschatological openness to the future. His is a formidable task, dealing with two millennia of history, a vast amount of primary and secondary literature, and a plethora of interpretations. He devotes nearly one hundred pages to the biblical sources and then, in a tour d'horizon, addresses some of the principal ecclesiological topics. Prusak often refers to the patristic idea that the Church can become young again. That image was mentioned in Lumen Gentium 4:"the Spirit by the power of the Gospel rejuvenates the Church."The Council's view reflects the second-century apocalyptic work, The Shepherd of Hermas, which portrayed the Church as a haggard old woman who gradually becomes younger and more beautiful. St. Bede had a similar idea about the continuous growth of the Church when he wrote that "every day the Church gives birth to the Church"(PL93: 166). Leonardo Boff in our own day speaks often of "ecclesiogenesis." We do not find, however, an exhaustive survey of ecclesiological history in Prusak's work. Of necessity, he is selective in his choice of topics. Yet one regrets that he did not give more attention to such important questions as ecumenism, Mary and the Church, social justice, the laity, religious life, and the priesthood. He mentions the Council of Trent only briefly, almost as an aside. Although Trent did not discuss ex professo some of the pressing ecclesiological issues of the sixteenth century, such as the papacy, it did discuss the sacraments, the sources of revelation, and institutional reform, all of which clearly have significant ecclesial ramifications. Finally, Prusak's "Epilogue:AFuture for Women in the Church?" raises a legitimate ecclesiological issue, but unfortunately he does not present it with the rigorous theological evaluation it deserves. This volume is most readable. Prusak writes clearly with a positive and irenic tone. He shows familiarity with a wide range of biblical, theological, and historical sources. The footnotes provide us with an abundance of valuable information. Moreover, he deals masterfully with several critical ecclesiological issues. For example, his description of the founding of the Church by Jesus is well nuanced in his explanation of "the extended establishment of the Church" as it came into existence in stages. His treatment of the ecclesiology of communion is excellent and functions as a leitmotiv. It is appropriately applied to the Eucharist, the local and universal Church, collegiality, and the Church as a communion of churches. Of special value are his comments on the eschatological nature of the Church found in Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et Spes. The Church, though "unfinished," is ever called to newness in its ongoing pilgrimage.

The hazards of space travel.

Exploration is an important survival strategy in evolution. The migration of expansive species depends on exploring their immediate or distant surroundings for new food sources or safe habitats; it can also come as a result of population pressures or environmental changes. The human species has added another reason for exploration, namely curiosity. This intellectual urge to explore the unknown led the great European explorers to the Americas, Australia and Antarctica between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Inquisitiveness about nature is also the driving force behind humans exploring the polar caps, climbing mountain peaks and diving into the abysses of the oceans. Now, the ultimate frontier to explore in the twenty‐first century is space. Astronomical observations and satellites have already yielded immense knowledge about our solar system and the universe beyond. But these technologies can provide only a limited picture of what is out there; eventually humans themselves will have to travel to other planets to investigate them in more intimate detail. Tremendous advances in rocket and spaceship technologies during the past 50 years, driven mainly by national security considerations, the need for better communication or a desire to observe environmental changes and human activity on the ground, have made it possible to send humans into near‐Earth orbit and to the Moon. Conceivably, these advances will eventually make it possible to transport astronauts to other planets, and Mars in particular (Fig. 1). Figure 1. Late spring on Mars. Source: NASA. But there are significant differences between exploring Earth and exploring space. First and foremost, space is an unforgiving environment that does not tolerate human errors or technical failure. For humans leaving Earth's orbit for extended periods, there are even more dangers. One is the near absence of gravity in space; the presence of high‐energy, ionizing cosmic ray (HZE) nuclei is another. Because …

Professional education in end-of-life care: a US perspective.

In 1997 a report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences identified large gaps in knowledge of care at the end of life which demanded attention from biomedical, social science and health service researchers. The report, Approaching Death1, clearly indicted healthcare professionals' lack of education about end-of-life care as a major barrier to improvement of services. The seven recommendations, summarized in Box 1, addressed various decision-makers and deficiencies. Among the fundamental elements of sound professional preparation for end-of-life care the institute listed: command of relevant scientific and clinical knowledge; mastery of technical, communication, interpersonal and other skills; appreciation of ethical and professional principles of care; and development of organizational skills to help patients and families navigate the healthcare system. The report stressed that, although these elements emphasize knowledge and skills, they also reflect a concern for the attitudes, values and feelings that shape and infuse their application. This American perspective expressed in the IOM recommendations is not dissimilar from published international recommendations. The Expert Task Force of the World Health Organization, in its 1990 publication Cancer Pain Relief and Palliative Care2, called on governments to ensure that healthcare workers are adequately trained in palliative care and the relief of pain and recommended that palliative-care courses be an obligatory part of the basic training and certification of healthcare workers. These sentiments were echoed in Recommendation 1418 of the 1999 Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, ‘Protection of the Human Rights and Dignity of the Terminally Ill and Dying’3. In the Council's view, one factor threatening the fundamental rights of terminally ill and dying patients was a lack of continuing education and psychological support for professionals working in palliative medicine. The Council recommended that member States be encouraged to develop and implement standards for highquality training. In short, there is growing international advocacy for professional education in end-of-life care. The United States' efforts to improve education in end-of-life care consist of a series of initiatives focused on: undergraduate, graduate and continuing education; faculty development; and a series of overarching efforts, such as the development of palliative care associations, programmes in distance learning and website networks. These approaches, directed at reducing the barriers for healthcare professionals, are briefly described in the following sections. They represent a wide range of efforts at various stages of development, and their impact on professional education cannot yet be assessed—and still less the impact on care for the 2.5 million Americans who die each year. Concurrent efforts to transform the culture of death in America and eliminate institutional, economic and social barriers are also underway. Box 1 Recommendations from the Institute of Medicine's Approaching Death (Ref. 1) People with advanced, potentially fatal illnesses and those close to them should be able to expect and receive reliable, skilful and supportive care Physicians, nurses, social workers, and other health professionals must commit themselves to improving care for dying patients and to using existing knowledge effectively to prevent and relieve pain and other symptoms Because many deficiencies in care stem from system problems, policymakers, consumer groups, and purchasers of healthcare should work with healthcare practitioners, organizations, and researchers to: Strengthen methods for measuring the quality of life and other outcomes of care for dying patients and those close to them Develop better tools and strategies for improving the quality of care and holding healthcare organizations accountable for care at the end of life Revise mechanisms for financing care so that they encourage rather than impede good end-of-life care and sustain rather than frustrate coordinated systems of excellent care Reform drug prescription laws, burdensome regulations, and State medical board policies and practices that impede effective use of opioids to relieve pain and suffering Educators and other health professionals should initiate changes in undergraduate, graduate and continuing education to ensure that practitioners have the attitudes, knowledge and skills to care well for dying patients Palliative care should become, if not a medical specialty, at least a defined area of expertise, education, and research The nation's research establishment should define and implement priorities for strengthening the knowledge base for end-of-life care A continuing public discussion is essential to develop a better understanding of the modern experience of dying, the options available to patients and families and the obligations of communities to those approaching death.

Welfare implications of cloning farm animals

The birth of Dolly, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh in 1997, prompted worldwide debate about the ethics of this technology. Conscious of public concerns about its welfare aspects, the UK Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food asked the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) to advise on the matter. In the foreword to this, the last report produced before his recent retirement from the FAWC Chairmanship, Professor Sir Colin Spedding reported the Council's view that no aspect of cloning was ‘intrinsically objectionable to the extent that it might be considered something not to be done at all’. However, the Report identifies a variety of potential welfare risks and proposes a number of safeguards.

Response to the National Council for Hospice and Specialist Palliative Care Services--voluntary euthanasia: the council's view, by Ann Marie Begley.

Response to the National Council for Hospice and Specialist Palliative Care Services--voluntary euthanasia: the council's view, by Ann Marie Begley.

Federalism and America's Public Works

On 24 February 1988, the National Council on Public Works Improvement submitted its final report on the nation 's public works to the president and the Congress. The report concluded that America's infrastructure is not in ruins, as charged by the landmark book entitled America in Ruins. The report did say, however, that the nation 's infrastructure is only barely adequate and getting worse. The council urged the nation to reverse course and give greater attention to infrastructure renewal and expansion. In the council's view, federalism will be a major factor in the success of the needed turnaround. Such change will require shared responsibilities involving the federal, state, and local governments plus the private sector. Significant changes in the relationships among these actors have made the 1980s a decade of transition, diminishing federal influence on infrastructure issues.

Comments on the Council's View of the Forest Industry

Comments on the Council's View of the Forest Industry

La nouvelle politique agricole polonaise, 1980-1984

The new Polish agricultural policy The stagnation in Polish agriculture, and the chronic structural crisis in its organization, are the result of a failure in the policy followed by the Polish authorities. The present article is concerned with the new agricultural policy, which the Polish government embarked upon during the period 1980-1984. This policy is based on certain fundamental principles such as the guaranteed right of ownership and succession of private farms, and the durability of the status of private agriculture, this political concession being expressed in terms of agricultural self-management, and the creation and guarantee of a climate of confidence. The author first looks at official statements favourable to agriculture, notably the private sector, and at the initiation and implementation of a series of reforms, new laws passed as and when necessary by the Diet. The second part of the article is concerned with an analysis of agricultural incomes, and the author examines the following questions : profitability of the state sector, incomes of private farmers, particularly money incomes, the question of parity of income between workers in the socialized and non-socialized sectors, and, finally, the problem of price-policy in respect of purchases of agricultural produce from private producers. Even within the government departments concerned (the Consultative Economic Council, and the Council for Food Supplies) there is far from unanimity of views in the policy on agricultural incomes. Two fundamental questions are involved : purchase prices paid to farmers by the State and "parity" as between agricultural and non- agricultural incomes. The Consultative Economic Council's view is that, in a period of serious disequilibrium, a rise in agricultural prices and incomes must have an unsetting effect on the market, and is likely to set an inflationary spiral in motion ; they likewise fear the creation of an inflationary disequilibrium in agriculture. This view is upheld by other supporters of a policy of limiting the incomes of private farmers, who suggest the introduction of a progressive agricultural tax. This view is opposed by other economists, who hold that the most urgent of all priorities must be an increase in agricultural production. Almost all the discussion on the new agricultural policy centres on proposals for a revised Polish system which would replace administrative directives by economic instruments. The author concludes by expressing the view that the only hope for development in Polish agriculture lies in political concessions to the producers.

Country of origin marking

Patriotism, whilst not exactly outmoded, is less important for consumers in buying goods than other factors such as price and value for money, according to a recent survey carried out for the National Consumer Council. They are also concerned about service — how long a product is likely to last, how much it will cost to run, and the availability of spare parts. The Council's view is that further legislation about origin marking should be given no greater priority, so far as consumers' interests are concerned, than other types of information labelling which may be more directly valuable to consumers.

Self-sufficiency in forest policy in Australia

Summary For many years, the difference between consumption and production of wood and wood products in Australia has been met by imports. For most of this century, arguments have been advanced from some quarters for a policy of “self-sufficiency”, i.e. complete replacement of imports by a home grown equivalent, particularly from coniferous plantations. These arguments, and the present status of “self-sufficiency”, on a State and a national basis, are reviewed. It is suggested that, by contrast with a policy of “self-sufficiency”, the Australian Forestry Council's view that “forest policy throughout Australia should be directed towards ensuring that Australia has a long term capability to supply such of its own requirements of forest products as might be consistent with economic and environmental considerations” seems at the present time more socially, economically and politically realistic.