As medical technology advances and severely injured or ill people can be kept alive and functioning long beyond what was previously medically possible, the debate surrounding the ethics of end-of-life care and quality-of-life issues has grown more urgent. In this lucid and vigorous book, Craig Paterson discusses assisted suicide and euthanasia from a fully fledged but non-dogmatic secular natural law perspective. He rehabilitates and revitalises the natural law approach to moral reasoning by developing a pluralistic account of just why we (...) are required by practical rationality to respect and not violate key demands generated by the primary goods of persons, especially human life. Important issues that shape the moral quality of an action are explained and analysed: intention/foresight; action/omission; action/consequences; killing/letting die; innocence/non-innocence; person/non-person. Paterson defends the central normative proposition that ‘it is always a serious moral wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human person, whether self or another, notwithstanding any further appeal to consequences or motive’.

The article examines from an historical perspective some of the key ideas used in contemporary bioethics debates both for and against the practices of assisted suicide and euthanasia. Key thinkers examined--spanning the Ancient, Medieval and Modern periods--include Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Hume, Kant, and Mill. The article concludes with a synthesizing summary of key ideas that oppose or defend assisted suicide and euthanasia.”

All too often in applied ethics debates, there is a danger that a lack of analytical clarity and precision in the use of key terms serves to cloud and confuse the real nature of the debate being undertaken. A particular area of concern in my analysis of the bioethics literature has been the uses to which the key terms "suicide," "assisted suicide," and "euthanasia" are put. The modest aim of this article is to render a contribution to the applied ethics debate on these topics by seeking to delimit the scope and meaning of these terms. The criteria of specificity, non-arbitrariness, consistency (between various terms), and the avoidance of strong pejorative presuppositions, supply the main standards guiding my adoption of usages.

Abstract: In this paper, after outlining some general remarks on the nature of faith and reason in Anselm, I will proceed to explore a key aspect of his thought concerning the necessity of God's existence. In particular, I will concentrate on his Proslogion, and subject his ontological argument for the existence of God to a line of critique directed mainly at its Neo-Platonic pre-suppositions. In the second part of my paper, I turn my attention to the thought of George Berkeley.

Abstract: This paper is essentially concerned with defending the idea of a universal right to adequate health care coverage. It will argue for the existence of a human right grounded in Catholic social thought. At the outset, a statement of clarification is needed. This paper does not pretend to offer the panacea for all ills relating to health care provision. Rather, it is an inquiry into the kinds of value that should inform decision making relating to health policy. A universal right to adequate health care cannot be established without questioning the ...

The work of Dan Brock and Helga Kuhse is typical of the current stream of thought rejecting the validity of sanctity of life appeals to instill objective inviolable worth in human life regardless of the quality of life of the patient. The context of a person's life is supremely important. In their systems life can have high value, yet the value of life can be outweighed by the force of other disvalues. The notion of quality of life has increasingly come to signify the measurement of the worth of a person's life itself. Having a life equals personal life. Any objectivity to life resides in 'personal', 'biographical', or 'creative' life, not mere biological life. Personal life represents the minimal threshold for any objective worth.

The paper argues for the existence of a universal right to adequate health care.  It argues for the existence of a human right grounded in Catholic social thought.  Part one examines the realities facing poor and vulnerable populations in the US today and their problems of access. Various forms of existing provision are reviewed to establish the nature of the problem to be addressed in parts three and four of the paper.  Building on the foundation of part one, part two attempts to relate the generation of those outcomes to underlying strains in contemporary liberal and libertarian theories of justice that give rise to the partial and fragmentary nature of health care provision.  Particular attention is given to Locke, Rawls, Daniels, Nozick and, Engelhardt.  In the third part, the positive task of construction begins.  Much of this creative work has been undertaken within the context of principles developed in Catholic social thought.  The paper explores this different approach to questions of justice relating the basic conditions for human flourishing. Three key principles are developed – human dignity, solidarity, and the common good.  In the fourth part, this paper engages in an assessment of the implications of Catholic social thought for a right to adequate health care.  It considers objections, and seeks to defend the credibility of  a vision for health care reform that stresses the need for a comprehensive state funded insurance scheme.

This paper provides an overview of the application of canon law to theadministration of Catholic health care in the United States. It is divided intofour sections. The first section provides a context for the role of canon law inthe life of the Church. The second section considers the fundamental questionof juridic personality in the Church. The third section delineates thepredominant forms of organization that have hitherto been the main Churchrelated institutions providing health care. The fourth section considers thevalidity of the McGrath "independence" thesis concerning the continuingapplicability of canon law to incorporated health care structures under U.S.civil law. The paper concludes with some practical considerations concerningthe relationship between canon law and corporate structures.

The moral and legal authority to claim dominion over one’s own life is at the heart of the debate concerning assisted suicide.  Such authority is fueled by a sense of culture that increasingly views the right to autonomy as a paramount value that trumps other values such as the sanctity or intrinsic value of life.  In contrast, the Christian vision of humanity has viewed autonomy or liberty as a limited value in the service of promoting an authentic vision of human flourishing .
Free will and rational choice exist in order to allow the human person a freedom to response to God’s calling of union with Him in eternal life.  The path forged by choices made concerning the course of our earthly life are constitutive of our decision’s to accept or reject the wisdom of His creation.

The first part of this paper proceeds, firstly, with a exposition of the Catholic tradition’s understanding of the relationship between the human person and the Lord of Life and Death.  It starts with the foundations of the Catholic faith contained in revelation from Sacred Scripture. The human person is made in the image and likeness of God.  Life is a freely given gift from God to be treasured and reverenced.  It explores the theme of God’s dominion over our lives and the responsibilities of stewardship entailed by God’s loving gift.  It proceeds to show how the anthropology contained in Sacred Scripture has been developed in the tradition.  Whilst that tradition places unique faith in the light of revelation, it stresses the ability of the light of reason
to apprehend profound truths concerning the nature of the human person that encompasses the intrinsic good of human life.  The thought of two key Church Fathers is drawn upon to illustrate the central lines of thought concerning the natural law tradition.  It also draws upon the
pronouncements of the Church’s Magisterium.

The second part of the paper considers challenges to this tradition in favour of suicide and assisted suicide.  It firstly, considers challenges from Sacred Scripture, and a different interpretation of the relationality between the human person and God’s dominion over life. Secondly, it advances the case against the sanctity of life ethic contra the tradition.  Such accounts are either consequentialist or represent a mixed system of prima facie duties and consequences.  Thirdly, it then moves on to consider critiques derived from the value of autonomy.  The final critique considered is the rejection of the traditional distinction drawn
between intention/foresight that forms an indispensable part of double effect reasoning.

The third part of the paper, constitutes a critique of the case in favour of suicide and assisted suicide.  It responds to the challenges posed by the second part of the paper.  It seeks to argue that the theological critiques of God’s dominion are ill founded.  Secondly, it seeks to challenge the argument that life is a non-intrinsic value that can be directly acted against. Thirdly, it argues against the tendency to conceptualise the values of autonomy as a trump over the value of human life since it should be regarded as an instrumental value in the service of authentic human flourishing.  Fourthly, it seeks to respond to the critique of the
intention/foresight distinction that underpins the use of double effect reasoning in conflict situations.

This book expands the discourse in contemporary debate on Analytical Thomism. It explores crucial philosophical, theological and ethical issues such as: metaphysics and epistemology, the nature of God, personhood, action and meta-ethics. All those interested in the thought of St Thomas Aquinas, and more generally contemporary Catholic scholarship, problems in philosophy of religion, and contemporary metaphysics, will find this collection an invaluable resource.

Abstract: All too often in applied ethics debates, there is a danger that a lack of analytical clarity and precision in the use of key terms serves to cloud and confuse the real nature of the debate being undertaken. A particular area of concern in my analysis of the bioethics literature has been the uses to which the key terms" suicide,"" assisted suicide," and" euthanasia" are put. The modest aim of this article is to render a contribution to the applied ethics debate on these topics by seeking to delimit the scope and meaning of these terms. ...

The work of Dan Brock and Helga Kuhse is typical of the current stream of thought rejecting the validity of sanctity of life appeals to instill objective inviolable worth in human life regardless of the quality of life of the patient. The context of a person's life is supremely important. In their systems life can have high value, yet the value of life can be outweighed by the force of other disvalues. The notion of quality of life has increasingly come to signify the measurement of the worth of a person's life itself. Having a life equals personal life. ...

The first question that might occur to someone picking up the present volume for the first time is, what is Analytical Thomism? This is a very good question but one that is not easy to answer. The second part of the phrase is perhaps somewhat easier to respond to than the first, for "Thomism" can more readily be identified as referring to a particular corpus of thought, namely, the thought of Thomas Aquinas and the subsequent interpretation of his ideas. Analytic philosophers, on the other hand, are still relatively unclear about what "analytical" as in "analytic philosophy" is or what its possible connections to Thomism might be. Does analytic philosophy, for example, embrace a particular set of doctrines or beliefs? Most analytic philosophers would answer no. They would insist that whatever analytic philosophy is, and whatever its historical origins, analytic philosophy is today used by philosophers to argue for positions running the length of the philosophical spectrum-from various kinds of realism and idealism in metaphysics, to empiricism and rationalism in epistemology, and to non-cognitivism and utilitarianism in ethics. Is analytic philosophy, then, primarily a philosophical method, a particular way of doing philosophy? Again, most analytic philosophers would say that there is no particular method of doing analytic philosophy apart from giving high priority to rigorous argumentation and clarity of expression. But many philosophers (indeed, one would hope most philosophers) who would not normally be called analytic philosophers have given priority to sound argumentation and clarity of expression. What, then, could analytical philosophy's appeal be to Thomists, who certainly, in Aquinas, have a first rate example of a rigorous and disciplined philosophical and theological thinker? Do Analytical Thomists turn to analytic philosophy simply in order to "pick up" helpful techniques for assisting them in the interpretative clarification of specific aspects of Aquinas's thought or are they more deeply drawn to the wellsprings of analytical philosophy because they hold that an analytical approach to philosophy, can, more effectively than traditional neo-Thomism, illuminate our critical understanding of the deepest conceptual foundations of his thought? The nature of the relationship between analytic philosophy and Thomism raises, in the minds of many, the following line of questioning: must Analytical Thomists be committed to any of the traditionally framed doctrines of Thomistic thought? Must Analytical Thomists, for example, hold a philosophic commitment to some way(s) of rationally demonstrating (or at least defending the possibility of) the existence of God, specifically the God of Christianity? Or, must an Analytic Thomist, at least, be committed to supporting some form of hylomorphism? xiii

As medical technology advances and severely injured or ill people can be kept alive and functioning long beyond what was previously medically possible, the debate surrounding the ethics of end-of-life care and quality-of-life issues has grown more urgent. In this lucid and vigorous book, Craig Paterson discusses assisted suicide and euthanasia from a fully fledged but non-dogmatic secular natural law perspective. He rehabilitates and revitalises the natural law approach to moral reasoning by developing a pluralistic account of just why we (...) are required by practical rationality to respect and not violate key demands generated by the primary goods of persons, especially human life. Important issues that shape the moral quality of an action are explained and analysed: intention/foresight; action/omission; action/consequences; killing/letting die; innocence/non-innocence; person/non-person. Paterson defends the central normative proposition that ‘it is always a serious moral wrong ...