Premediation

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Robert S. Taylor

How can citizens best protect themselves from the arbitrary power of abusive spouses, tyrannical bosses, and corrupt politicians? 'Exit Left' makes the case that in each of these three spheres the answer is the same: exit. By promoting open and competitive markets and providing the information and financial resources necessary to enable exit, the book argues that this can empower people's voices and offer them an escape from abuse and exploitation. This will advance a conception of freedom, viz. freedom as non-domination (FND), which is central to contemporary republican thought. Neo-republicans have typically promoted FND through constitutional means (separation of powers, judicial review, the rule of law, and federalism) and participatory ones (democratic elections and oversight), but this book focuses on economic means, ones that have been neglected by contemporary republicans but were commonly invoked in the older, commercial-republican tradition of Alexander Hamilton, Immanuel Kant, and Adam Smith. Just as Philip Pettit and other neo-republicans have revived and revised classical republicanism, so this book will do the same for commercial republicanism. This revival will enlarge republican practice by encouraging greater use of market mechanisms, even as it hews closely to existing republican theory.

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Malachi Martin

The shroud of secrecy that has surrounded the Church of Rome has mystified and troubled millions of Catholics as well as non-Catholics. This book reveals how influential members of that Church were ready to make their accommodation with a future under communism. The price of the Church's survival, they believed, must be a radical departure from Western institutions and the way of life we have all known. Opposed to them are other important officials who plead for a restoration of the Church to its proper role. The final decision taken by all these men, who speak for one quarter of the world's population, was made in the course of Conclave 82, a special meeting after the death of Paul VI at which the next Pope was elected. Dr. Martin, a former Jesuit, takes us behind the scenes to witness the forbidden maneuvering for Peter's crown and its worldly power; from the beginning of the seventies, many of the Cardinals have been electioneering.^ We learn why the sweeping changes of Paul VI, made--he was convinced--to assure the very survival of the Church, have pushed the Cardinals to one of the most critical decisions in our history. We watch the deal-makers, the holy men, the politicking, and the cynical alliances as the various factions attempt to gain control. All of the Cardinals are confronted by the accumulated corruption of more than a millennium: the Church as businessman, as a multi-national conglomerate involved in ownership and management of property, and as power-broker dealing in countries, continents, and human liberty. In the heart of this book, Malachi Martin recreates the actual scenario of Conclave 82. The reader will know more about the complete process from having experienced it in this book than many a Cardinal-Elector, including how illegal secret communications with the outside world are maintained.^ In a dramatic crescendo we witness a climax more moving than any play can ever be because we know it involves the future lives of nations, including our own. --Adapted from dust jacket.

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Quentin Smith and Aleksandar Jokic

"Consciousness is perhaps the most puzzling problem we humans face in trying to understand ourselves. It has been the subject of intense study for several decades, but, despite substantial progress, the most difficult problems have still not reached any generally agreed solution. This book is one starting place for future research. Eighteen original, specially written essays offer new angles on the subject. The contributors, who include many of the leading figures in philosophy of mind, discuss such central topics as intentionality, phenomenal content, knowledge of mental states, consciousness and the brain, and the relevance of quantum mechanics to the study of consciousness. Book jacket."--Jacket.

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Robert S. Olick

In the years since the landmark Karen Ann Quinlan case, an ethical, legal, and societal consensus supporting patients' rights to refuse life-sustaining treatment has become a cornerstone of bioethics. Patients now legally can write advance directives to govern their treatment decisions at a time of future incapacity, yet in clinical practice their wishes often are ignored. Examining the tension between incompetent patients' prior wishes and their current best interests as well as other challenges to advance directives, the author offers a comprehensive argument for favoring advance instructions during the dying process. He clarifies widespread confusion about the moral and legal weight of advance directives, and he prescribes changes in law, policy, and practice that would not only ensure that directives count in the care of the dying but also would define narrow instances when directives should not be followed. He also presents and develops an original theory of prospective autonomy that recasts and strengthens patient and family control.