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Bioethics

Bioethics

Bioethics is the ethics of biological science and medicine.

Definition and scope

Bioethics concerns the ethical questions that arise in the relationships between biology, medicine, cybernetics, politics, law, philosophy, and theology. Disagreement exists about the proper scope for the application of ethical evaluation to questions involving biology. Some bioethicists would narrow ethical evaluation only to the morality of medical treatments or technological innovations, and the timing of medical treatment of humans. Other bioethicists would broaden the scope of ethical evaluation to include the morality of all actions that might help or harm organisms capable of feeling fear and pain. Bioethics involves many public policy questions that are often politicized— used to mobilize political constituencies. For this reason, some biologists and others involved in the development of technology have come to see any mention of "bioethics" as an attempt to derail their work and react to it as such, regardless of the true intent. Transhumanist biologists in particular can be inclined to this line of thought, as they see their work as inherently ethical, and attacks on it as misguided.

Issues

Bioethics issues include:
- Abortion, reproductive rights
- Artificial insemination
- Artificial life
- Biopiracy
- Circumcision
- Confidentiality of medical records and their abuse in interrogation of prisoners
- Contraception
- Cloning
- Cryogenics
- Direct mind-computer interface
- Donating one's sperm or eggs
- Donated organs when bought illegally (transplant trade)
- Eugenics
- Fair allocation of donated organs, class and race biases
- Drug pricing, HIV/AIDs drugs in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Genetic engineering, genetically modified food crops
- Genomics
- Homosexuality
- Human cloning
- Medical torture
- Non-human animal cloning
- Immortality
- Treating infertility
- Obligations of the individual, corporate employer, local, sub-national or national state and global community to provide health care and/or health insurance.
- Primate rights under law
- Stem cell cloning
- Suicide, assisted suicide and human euthanasia
- Non-human animal euthanasia
- Pain management
- Parthenogenesis
- Population control
- Recreational drug use
- Reprogenetics
- Scientific ignorance
- Selling one's own blood or blood plasma
- Spiritual drug use
- Transhumanism
- Transexuality
- When to use, and when to withhold, life-support
- When to use, and when to withhold, artificial hydration and artificial nutrition
- Use of surrogate mothers
- Use of nanotechnology as medical treatment
- Use of artificial wombs
- Treating non-human animals
- Medical research on non-human animals Bioethicists focus on using philosophy to help analyze said concerns, though bioethics is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary. Religious bioethicists have developed rules and guidelines on how to deal with these issues from within the viewpoint of their respective faiths. Some secular bioethicists are critical of the fact that these are usually religious scholars without an academic degree or training in disciplines that pertain to the issues, such as philosophy (wherein the study of ethics is usually found), biology or medicine. Most religious bioethicists are Jewish or Christian scholars. However a small number of religious scholars from other religions have recently become involved in this field as well. Islamic clerics have begun to write on this topic. Muslim bioethicists include Abdulaziz Sachedina, at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. There has been some criticism by liberal Muslims that only the more religiously conservative voices in Islam are being heard on this issue. Buddhist bioethicists have focused much of their concern on organ transplantation.

See also

Subjects
- Environmental ethics
- Ethics
- Medicine
- Utilitarian Bioethics Bioethicists
- Arthur Caplan
- Leon Kass
- Bernard Nathanson
- Joseph Fletcher
- Peter Singer

References (general)


- Orr, Robert D. and Leigh B. Genesen. Requests for inappropriate treatment based on religious beliefs in Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol. 23, 1997. pp. 142-147.
- Potter, Van Rensselaer. (1971). Bioethics: Bridge to the Future. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0130765058
- Potter, Van Rensselaer. (1988). Global Bioethics: Building on the Leopold Legacy. East Lansing. Michigan State University Press. ISBN 0870132644
- Sloan, R.P., E. Bagiella and T. Powlell. Religion, spirituality, and medicine, The Lancet, 1999, 353(9153): 1-7.
- Stevin, Peter and Joe Stevens, Detainees' Medical Files Shared Guantanamo Interrogators' Access Criticized Washington Post June 10, 2004, Page A01
- Thomas, John. Where Religious and Secular Ethics Meet in Humane Health Care International, Vol. 12, No. 1, January 1996.

Muslim Bioethics


- Al Khayat MH. Health and Islamic behaviour. In: El Gindy AR, editor. Health policy, ethics and human values: Islamic perspective Kuwait: Islamic Organization of Medical Sciences; 1995. p. 447-50.
- Ebrahim, Abul Fadl Mohsin. Abortion, Birth Control and Surrogate Parenting. An Islamic Perspective Indianapolis, 1989
- Esposito, John. Ed. Surrogate Motherhood in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Jewish Bioethics


- Bleich, J. David. 1981. Judaism and Healing. New York: Ktav
- Dorff, Elliot N. 1998. Matters of Life and Death: A Jewish Approach to Modern Medical Ethics. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society
- Feldman DM. Marital relations, birth control, and abortion in Jewish law. New York: Schocken Books; 1974
- Freedman B. Duty and healing: foundations of a Jewish bioethic. New York: Routledge; 1999
- Jakobovits I. Jewish medical ethics. New York: Bloch Publishing; 1959
- Life & Death Responsibilities in Jewish Biomedical Ethics, Ed. Aaron L. Mackler, JTS, 2000
- Maibaum M. A "progressive" Jewish medical ethics: notes for an agenda. Journal of Reform Judaism 1986;33(3):27-33.
- Rosner, Fred Modern medicine and Jewish ethics New York: Yeshiva University Press; 1986
- Conservative Judaism Vol. 54(3), Spring 2002 (Contains a set of six articles on bioethics)
- Zohar, Noam J. 1997. Alternatives in Jewish Bioethics. Albany: State University of New York Press

Christian Bioethics


- Colson, Charles W. (editor) 2004. Human Dignity in the Biotech Century: A Christian Vision for Public Policy. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press
- Demy, Timothy J. and Gary P. Steward. 1998. Suicide: A Christian Response: Crucial Considerations for Choosing Life. Grand Rapids: Kregel
- Pope John Paul II. 1995. Evangelium Vitae: The Gospel of Life. Vatican City
- Kilner, John et al. 1995. Bioethics and the Future of Medicine: A Christian Appraisal. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
- Kilner, John F., Arlene B. Miller, and Edmund D. Pellegrino (eds.). 1996. Dignity and Dying: A Christian Appraisal. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co.; and Carlisle, United Kingdom: Paternoster Press
- Meilaender, Gilbert 2004. Bioethics: A Primer For Christians. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
- Pope Paul VI. 1968. Humanae Vitae: Human Life. Vatican City
- Smith, Wesley J. 2004. Consumer's Guide to A Brave New World. San Francisco: Encounter Books
- Smith, Wesley J. 2002. Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America. San Francisco: Encounter Books
- Smith, Wesley J. 1997. Forced Exit:The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Murder. New York: Times Books
- Stewart, Gary P. et al. 1998. Basic Questions on Suicide and Euthanasia: Are They Ever Right? BioBasics Series. Grand Rapids: Kregel
- Stewart, Gary P. et al. 1998. Basic Questions on End of Life Decisions: How Do We Know What's Right? Grand Rapids: Kregel

External links


- [http://www.seattlechildrens.org/home/research/bioethics.asp Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics]
- [http://www2.unescobkk.org/eubios/aiba.htm All India Association of Bioethics]
- [http://bioethics.net/ The American Journal of Bioethics]
- [http://www.asbh.org/ American Society for Bioethics and Humanities]
- [http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/164/1/60 Bioethics for clinicians: Islamic bioethics - Canadian Medical Association Journal]
- [http://www.uj.edu/Content/ContentUnit.asp?CID=186&u=674&t=0 Bioethics program at the University of Judaism, Los Angeles, California]
- [http://bioethics-sport.blogspot.com Bioethics and Sport]
- [http://bioliberty.inno.bme.hu/proposal-en.html Bioliberty: Proposal for the Declaration of Intelligent Beings' Rights]
- [http://www.cbhd.org/ The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity (A Christian bioethics council)]
- [http://www.cbc-network.org/ The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network]
- [http://www.stemcellresearch.org/ The Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics]
- [http://www.gene-watch.org Council for Responsible Genetics USA]
- [http://www2.unescobkk.org/eubios/ Eubios Ethics Institute JAPAN]
- [http://www.thehastingscenter.org The Hastings Center]
- [http://www.aecom-shul.com/medlinks.html Jewish bioethics on the web]
- [http://www.darchenoam.org/ethics/bioethics/index.htm Jewish Bioethics from Jerusalem's Darche Noam Educational Institute]
- [http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0269-9702 Journal of the International Association of Bioethics]
- [http://www2.unescobkk.org/eubios/mystical.htm Mystical Bioethics Network]
- [http://www.ncbcenter.org/ National Catholic Bioethics Center]
- [http://www.nih.gov/sigs/bioethics/ National Institute of Health: Bioethics resources on the web]
- [http://www.mapdot.info/Celibate_Bioethics.pdf Pandas' Liberation Revisited]
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-bioethics/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Feminist Bioethics]
- [http://www.bioethics.gov/ The U.S.A. President's Council on Bioethics]

Stem Cell Research Controversy in the United States


- [http://slate.msn.com/id/2090244 Taking Bush Personally]
- [http://slate.msn.com/id/2090527 Stemming Stem Cells: A Case Study in Modern Washington Dishonesty]

Fertility Law Controversy in Italy


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3548242.stm Effects of Legal Repression of Fertility Treatments]

GNR Politics

:Note: GNR technologies are genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics
- Thomas A. Georges. Digital Soul: Intelligent Machines and Human Values. Boulder: Westview. ISBN 0813340578. p. 241
- Category:ISBN needed ja:生命倫理学

Ethics

:For the book of the same name, see Ethics (book) Ethics (from Greek ethikos) is the branch of axiology – one of the four major branches of philosophy, alongside metaphysics, epistemology, and logic – which attempts to understand the nature of morality; to define that which is right from that which is wrong. The Western tradition of ethics is sometimes called moral philosophy.

The first social science

Assumptions about ethical underpinnings of human behaviour are reflected in every social science, including: anthropology because of the complexities involved in relating one culture to another, economics because of its role in the distribution of scarce resources, political science because of its role in allocating power, sociology because of its roots in the dynamics of groups, law because of its role in codifying ethical constructs like mercy and punishment, criminology because of its role in rewarding ethical behaviour and discouraging unethical behaviour, and psychology because of its role in defining, understanding, and treating unethical behaviour. Ethics has also been extended to the hard sciences, such as biology (as bioethics) and ecology (as environmental ethics). As these fields become more complex and deal with more situations, the application of ethics in those fields can also become more complex. In analytic philosophy, ethics is traditionally divided into three fields: Meta-ethics, Normative ethics (including value theory and the theory of conduct) and applied ethics – which is seen to be derived, top-down, from normative and thus meta-ethics.

Meta-ethics

Meta-ethics is the investigation of the nature of ethical statements. It involves such questions as: Are ethical claims truth-apt, i.e., capable of being true or false, or are they, for example, expressions of emotion (see cognitivism and non-cognitivism)? If they are truth-apt, are they ever true? If they are ever true, what is the nature of the facts that they express? And are they ever true absolutely (see moral absolutism), or always only relative to some individual, society, or culture? (See moral relativism, cultural relativism.) Meta-ethics is one of the most important fields in philosophy. Meta-ethics studies the nature of ethical sentences and attitudes. This includes such questions as what "good" and "right" mean, whether and how we know what is right and good, whether moral values are objective, and how ethical attitudes motivate us. Often this is derived from some list of moral absolutes, e.g. a religious moral code, whether explicit or not. Some would view aesthetics as itself a form of meta-ethics Meta-ethics also investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what they mean. Are they merely social inventions? Do they involve more than expressions of our individual emotions? Meta-ethical answers to these questions focus on the issues of universal truths, the will of God, the role of reason in ethical judgments, and the meaning of ethical terms themselves.

Normative ethics

Normative ethics bridges the gap between meta-ethics and applied ethics. It is the attempt to arrive at practical moral standards that tell us right from wrong, and how to live moral lives. This may involve articulating the good habits that we should acquire, the duties that we should follow, or the consequences of our behavior on others.
- One branch of normative ethics is theory of conduct; this is the study of right and wrong, of obligation and permissions, of duty, of what is above and beyond the call of duty, and of what is so wrong as to be evil. Theories of conduct propose standards of morality, or moral codes or rules. For example, the following would be the sort of rules that a theory of conduct would discuss (though different theories will differ on the merit of each of these particular rules): "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"; "The right action is the action which produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number"; "Stealing is wrong". Theories of moral conduct can be distinguished from etiquette by their concern with finding guidelines for action that are not dependent entirely on social convention. For example, it may not be a breach of etiquette to fail to give money to help those in poverty, but it could still be a failure to act morally.
- Another branch of normative ethics is theory of value; this looks at what things are deemed to be valuable. Suppose we have decided that certain things are intrinsically good, or are more valuable than other things that are also intrinsically good. Given this, the next big question is what would this imply about how we should live our lives? The theory of value also asks: What sorts of things are good? What sorts of situations are good? Is pleasure always good? Is it good for people to be equally well-off? Is it intrinsically good for beautiful objects to exist? Or: What does "good" mean? It may literally define "good" and "bad" for a community or society. [Criticism: Theory of value is not a part of normative ethics, though normative ethics presupposes some theory of value. For example, there are aesthetic values which may be amoral, i.e., neutral in regard to conduct.]

Applied ethics

One form of applied ethics applies normative ethical theories to specific controversial issues. In these cases, the ethicist adopts a defensible theoretical framework, and then derives normative advice by applying the theory. However, many persons and situations, notably traditional religionists and lawyers, find this approach either against accepted religious doctrine or impractical because it does not conform to existing laws and court decisions. Casuistry is a completely different form of applied ethics that is widely used in these cases and by these groups. Casuists compare moral dilemmas to well established cases (sometimes called paradigms). The well-established methods for coping with the well-established cases are then adapted to the case at hand. The special virtue of casuistry over applied moral theory is that groups and individuals often disagree about theories, but may nonetheless have remarkably similar paradigms. Thus, they may be able to achieve substantial social agreement about actions, even though their theories are incompatible. This may be why casuistry is the foundation of many legal systems. The ethical problems attacked by applied ethicists (of whatever sort) often bear directly on public policy. For example, the following would be questions of applied ethics: "Is getting an abortion ever moral?"; "Is euthanasia ever moral?"; "What are the ethical underpinnings of affirmative action policies?"; "What are human rights, and how do we determine them?"; "Do animals have rights?" Without these questions there is no clear fulcrum on which to balance law, politics, and practice of arbitration – in fact no common assumptions of all participants – so the ability to formulate the questions are prior to rights balancing. But not all questions studied in applied ethics concern public policy. For example: Is lying always wrong? If not, when is it permissible? The ability to make these ethical judgments is prior to any etiquette. There are several sub-branches of applied ethics examining the ethical problems of different professions, such as business ethics, medical ethics, engineering ethics and legal ethics, while technology assessment and environmental assessment study the effects and implications of new technologies or projects on nature and society. Each branch to characterize common issues and problems that arise in the ethical codes of the professions, and define their common responsibility to the public, e.g. to preserve its natural capital, or to obey some social expectations of honest dealings and disclosure.
- Abortion, legal and moral issues
- Animal rights
- Bioethics
- Business ethics
- Criminal justice
- Environmental ethics
- Feminism
- Gay rights
- Human rights
- Just war theory
- Medical ethics
- Utilitarian ethics
- Utilitarian bioethics Ethics has been applied to economics, politics and political science, leading to several distinct and unrelated fields of applied ethics, including Business ethics and Marxism. Ethics has been applied to family structure, sexuality, and how society views the roles of individuals; leading to several distinct and unrelated fields of applied ethics, including feminism. Moral Ethics has been applied to war, leading to the fields of pacifism and nonviolence. Ethics has been applied to analyze human use of Earth's limited resources. This has led to the study of environmental ethics and social ecology. A growing trend has been to combine the study of both ecology and economics to help provide a basis for sustainable decisions on environmental use. This has led to the theories of ecological footprint and bioregional autonomy. Political and social movements based on such ideas include eco-feminism, eco-anarchism, deep ecology, the green movement, and ideas about their possible integration into Gaia philosophy. Ethics has been applied to criminology leading to the field of criminal justice. There are several sub-branches of applied ethics examining the ethical problems of different professions, such as business ethics, medical ethics, engineering ethics and legal ethics, while technology assessment and environmental assessment study the effects and implications of new technologies or projects on nature and society. Each branch characterizes common issues and problems that may arise, and define their common responsibility to the public, e.g. to preserve its natural capital, or to obey some social expectations of honest dealings and disclosure.

Ethics in religion

Ethics in health care

One of the major areas where ethicists practice is in the field of health care. This includes medicine, nursing, pharmacy, genetics, and allied health professions. Example issues are euthanasia, abortion, medical experiments, vaccine trials, stem cell research, truth telling, patient rights and autonomy, rationing of health care (such as triage).

Ethics in psychology

By the 1960s there was increased interest in moral reasoning. Psychologists such as Lawrence Kohlberg developed theories which are based on the idea that moral behaviour is made possible by moral reasoning. Their theories subdivided moral reasoning into so-called stages, which refer to the set of principles or methods that a person uses for ethical judgment. The first and most famous theory of this type was Kohlberg's theory of moral development. Carol Gilligan, a student of Kohlberg's, argued that women tend to develop through a different set of stages from men. Her studies inspired work on a so-called ethic of care, which particularly defines itself against Rawlsian-type justice- and contract-based approaches. Another group of influential psychological theories with ethical implications is the humanistic psychology movement. One of the most famous humanistic theories is Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Maslow argued that the highest human need is self-actualization, which can be described as fulfilling one's potential, and trying to fix what is wrong in the world. Carl Rogers's work was based on similar assumptions. He thought that in order to be a 'fully functioning person', one has to be creative and accept one's own feelings and needs. He also emphasized the value of self-actualization. A similar theory was proposed by Fritz Perls, who assumed that taking responsibility of one's own life is an important value. R.D. Laing developed a broad range of thought on interpersonal psychology. This deals with interactions between people, which he considered important, for an ethical action always occurs between one person and another. In books such as The Politics of Experience, he dealt with issues concerning how we should relate to persons labeled by the psychiatric establishment as "schizophrenic". He came to be seen as a champion for the rights of those considered mentally ill. He spoke out against (and wrote about) practices of psychiatrists which he considered inhumane or barbaric, such as electric shock treatment. Like Wittgenstein, he was frequently concerned with clarifying the use of language in the field -- so, for example, he suggested that the effects of psychiatric drugs (some of which are very deleterious, such as tardive diskensia) be called just that: "effects", and not be referred to by the preferred euphemisms of the drug companies, who prefer to call them "side effects". Laing also did work in establishing true asylums as places of refuge for those who feel disturbed and want a safe place to go through whatever it is they want to explore in themselves, and with others. A third group of psychological theories that have implications for the nature of ethics are based on evolutionary psychology. These theories are based on the assumption that the behaviour that ethics prescribe can sometimes be seen as an evolutionary adaptation. For instance, altruism towards members of one's own family promotes one's inclusive fitness. Some concerns have developed recently about ethics in the psychology field itself. In particular there are concerns about the psychotherapy field and how several have reacted to criticism of their science. There has been concern about the behavior of these psychologists on Usenet (in newsgroups). Some of these concerns are voiced through the domain http://cyberper.cnc.net/a_spp_faq.htm

Ethics in politics

Often, such efforts take legal or political form before they are understood as works of normative ethics. The UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights of 1948 and the Global Green Charter of 2001 are two such examples. However, as war and the development of weapon technology continues, it seems clear that no non-violent means of dispute resolution is accepted by all. The need to redefine and align politics away from ideology and towards dispute resolution was a motive for Bernard Crick's list of political virtues.

Ethics by cases

A common approach in applied ethics is to deal with individual issues on a case-by-case basis. Casuistry is one such application of case-based reasoning to applied ethics. Almost all American states have tried to discourage dishonest practices by their public employees and elected officials by establishing an Ethics Commission for their state. Bernard Crick in 1982 offered a socially-centered view, that politics was the only applied ethics, that it was how cases were really resolved, and that "political virtues" were in fact necessary in all matters where human morality and interests were destined to clash. This and other views of modern universals is dealt with below under Global Ethics. The lines of distinction between meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics are often blurry. For example, the issue of abortion is an applied ethical topic since it involves a specific type of controversial behavior. But it also depends on more general normative principles, such as the right of self-rule and the right to life, which are litmus tests for determining the morality of that procedure. The issue also rests on metaethical issues such as, "where do rights come from?" and "what kind of beings have rights?" Another concept which blurs ethics is moral luck. A drunk driver may safely reach home without injuring anyone, or he might accidentally kill a child who runs out into the street while he is driving home. How bad the action of driving while drunk is in that case depends on chance.

Descriptive ethics

Some philosophers rely on descriptive ethics and choices made and unchallenged by a society or culture to derive categories, which typically vary by context. This leads to situational ethics and situated ethics. These philosophers often view aesthetics and etiquette and arbitration as more fundamental, percolating 'bottom up' to imply, rather than explicitly state, theories of value or of conduct. In these views ethics is not derived from a top-down a priori "philosophy" (many would reject that word) but rather is strictly derived from observations of actual choices made in practice:
- Ethical codes applied by various groups. Some consider aesthetics itself the basis of ethics – and a personal moral core developed through art and storytelling as very influential in one's later ethical choices.
- Informal theories of etiquette which tend to be less rigorous and more situational. Some consider etiquette a simple negative ethics, i.e. where can one evade an uncomfortable truth without doing wrong? One notable advocate of this view is Judith Martin ("Miss Manners"). In this view, ethics is more a summary of common sense social decisions.
- Practices in arbitration and law, e.g. the claim by Rushworth Kidder that ethics itself is a matter of balancing "right versus right", i.e. putting priorities on two things that are both right, but which must be traded off carefully in each situation. This view many consider to have potential to reform ethics as a practice, but it is not as widely held as the 'aesthetic' or 'common sense' views listed above.
- Observed choices made by ordinary people, without expert aid or advice, who vote, buy and decide what is worth fighting about. This is a major concern of sociology, political science and economics. Those who embrace such descriptive approaches tend to reject overtly normative ones. There are exceptions, such as the movement to more moral purchasing.

The analytic view

The descriptive view of ethics is modern and in many ways more empirical. But because the above are dealt with more deeply in their own articles, the rest of this article will focus on the formal academic categories, which are derived from classical Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle. First, we need to define an ethical sentence, also called a normative statement. An ethical sentence is one that is used to make either a positive or a negative (moral) evaluation of something. Ethical sentences use words such as "good," "bad," "right," "wrong," "moral," "immoral," and so on. Here are some examples:
- "Sally is a good person."
- "People should not steal."
- "The Simpson verdict was unjust."
- "Honesty is a virtue."
- "One ought not to break the law." In contrast, a non-ethical sentence would be a sentence that does not serve to (morally) evaluate something. Examples would include:
- "Someone took the stereo out of my car."
- "Simpson was acquitted at his trial."
- "Many people are dishonest."
- "I dislike it when people break the law."

See also


- Moral absolutism
  - Deontological ethics
  - Categorical imperative
  - Universal prescriptivism
  - Virtue ethics
- Consequentialism
  - Utilitarianism
  - Evolutionary ethics
- Divine command ethics
- Objectivist ethics
- Prima Facie ethics (See W. D. Ross)
- Situational ethics
  - Ethical relativism
  - Ethical subjectivism
- Ethical nihilism
- Ethical skepticism
- Altruism
- Altruism in animals
- Ethical egoism
- Social contracts. ----
- Bioethics
- Deontology
- Goodness and value theory
- Human rights
- Is-ought problem
- Kohlberg's stages of moral development
- List of ethicists
- List of ethics topics
- Meta-ethics
- Morality
- Naturalistic fallacy
- The Golden Rule
- Virtue ethics

References


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External links


- [http://ethics.acusd.edu/ Ethics Updates] mega-list of ethics resources maintained by Lawrence Hinman of the University of San Diego.
- [http://www.ditext.com/broad/ftet/ftet.html C. D. Broad, Five Types of Ethical Theory (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1930).]
- [http://www.ditext.com/ross/right.html W. D. Ross, The Right and the Good (1930)]
- [http://www.galilean-library.org/int11.html An Introduction to Ethics] by Paul Newall, aimed at beginners.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  - [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-ancient/ Ancient Ethics]
  - [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-environmental/ Environmental Ethics]
  - [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-ethics/ Feminist Ethics]
  - [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/ Natural Law Tradition in Ethics]
  - [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/ Virtue Ethics] Category:Social philosophy ja:倫理 simple:Ethics



Biology

Biology is the study, or science, of life. It is concerned with the characteristics and behaviors of organisms, how species and individuals come into existence, and the interactions they have with each other and with the environment. Biology encompasses a broad spectrum of academic fields that are often viewed as independent disciplines. However, together they address the phenomenon of life over a wide range of scales. At the atomic and molecular scale, life is studied in the disciplines of molecular biology, biochemistry, and molecular genetics. At the level of the cell, it is studied in cell biology, and at multicellular scales, it is examined in physiology, anatomy, and histology. Developmental biology studies life at the level of an individual organism's development or ontogeny. Moving up the scale towards more than one organism, genetics considers how heredity works between parent and offspring. Ethology considers group behavior of more than one individual. Population genetics looks at the level of an entire population, and systematics considers the multi-species scale of lineages. Interdependent populations and their habitats are examined in ecology and evolutionary biology. A speculative new field is astrobiology (or xenobiology), which examines the possibility of life beyond the Earth.
Biology studies the variety of life (clockwise from top-left) E. coli, tree fern, gazelle, Goliath beetle

Principles of biology

Unlike physics, biology does not usually describe systems in terms of objects which obey immutable physical laws described by mathematics. Nevertheless, the biological sciences are characterized and unified by several major underlying principles and concepts: universality, evolution, diversity, continuity, homeostasis, and interactions.

Universality: Biochemistry, cells, and the genetic code

mathematics]] Main articles: Life The most salient example of biological universality is that all living things share a common carbon-based biochemistry and in particular pass on their characteristics via genetic material, which is based on nucleic acids such as DNA and which uses a common genetic code with only minor variations. Another universal principle is that all organisms (that is, all forms of life on Earth except for viruses) are made of cells. Similarly, all organisms share common developmental processes. For example, in most metazoan organisms, the basic stages of early embryonic development share similar morphological characteristics and include similar genes.

Evolution: The central principle of biology

Main article: Evolution The central organizing concept in biology is that all life has a common origin and has changed and developed through the process of evolution (see Common descent). This has led to the striking similarity of units and processes discussed in the previous section. Charles Darwin established evolution as a viable theory by articulating its driving force, natural selection (Alfred Russell Wallace is recognized as the co-discoverer of this concept). Genetic drift was embraced as an additional mechanism of evolutionary development in the modern synthesis of the theory. The evolutionary history of a species— which describes the characteristics of the various species from which it descended— together with its genealogical relationship to every other species is called its phylogeny. Widely varied approaches to biology generate information about phylogeny. These include the comparisons of DNA sequences conducted within molecular biology or genomics, and comparisons of fossils or other records of ancient organisms in paleontology. Biologists organize and analyze evolutionary relationships through various methods, including phylogenetics, phenetics, and cladistics (The major events in the evolution of life, as biologists currently understand them, are summarized on this evolutionary timeline).

Diversity: The variety of living organisms

evolutionary timeline, based on rRNA gene data, showing the separation of the three domains bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes as described initially by Carl Woese. Trees constructed with other genes are generally similar, although they may place some early-branching groups very differently, presumably owing to rapid rRNA evolution. The exact relationships of the three domains are still being debated.]] Despite its underlying unity, life exhibits an astonishingly wide diversity in morphology, behavior, and life histories. In order to grapple with this diversity, biologists attempt to classify all living things. Scientific classification seeks to reflect the evolutionary trees (phylogenetic trees) of the organism being classified. Classification is the province of the disciplines of systematics and taxonomy. Taxonomy places organisms in groups called taxa, while systematics seeks to define their relationships with each other. This clasification technique has evolved to reflect advances in cladistics and genetics, shifting the focus from physical similarities and shared characteristics to phylogenetics. Traditionally, living things have been divided into five kingdoms: :Monera -- Protista -- Fungi -- Plantae -- Animalia However, many scientists now consider this five-kingdom system to be outdated. Modern alternative classification systems generally begin with the three-domain system: :Archaea (originally Archaebacteria) -- Bacteria (originally Eubacteria) -- Eukaryota These domains reflect whether the cells have nuclei or not, as well as differences in the cell exteriors. There is also a series of intracellular parasites that are progressively "less alive" in terms of metabolic activity: :Viruses -- Viroids -- Prions

Continuity: The common descent of life

Main article: Common descent Up into the 19th century, it was commonly believed that life forms could appear spontaneously under certain conditions (see abiogenesis). This misconception was challenged by William Harvey's diction that "all life [is] from [an] egg" (from the Latin "Omne vivum ex ovo"), a foundational concept of modern biology. It simply means that there is an unbroken continuity of life from its initial origin to the present time. A group of organisms is said to share a common descent if they share a common ancestor. All organisms on the Earth have been and are descended from a common ancestor or an ancestral gene pool. This last universal common ancestor of all organisms is believed to have appeared about 3.5 billion years ago. Biologists generally regard the universality of the genetic code as definitive evidence in favor of the theory of universal common descent (UCD) for all bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes (see: origin of life).

Homeostasis: Adapting to change

Main article: Homeostasis Homeostasis is the ability of an open system to regulate its internal environment to maintain a stable condition by means of multiple dynamic equilibrium adjustments controlled by interrelated regulation mechanisms. All living organisms, whether unicellular or multicellular, exhibit homeostasis. Homeostasis manifests itself at the cellular level through the maintenance of a stable internal acidity (pH); at the organismic level, warm-blooded animals maintain a constant internal body temperature; and at the level of the ecosystem, as when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise and plants are theoretically able to grow healthier and remove more of the gas from the atmosphere. Tissues and organs can also maintain homeostasis.

Interactions: Groups and environments

organ of the genus Amphiprion that dwell among the tentacles of tropical sea anemones. The territorial fish protects the anemone from anemone-eating fish, and in turn the stinging tentacles of the anemone protects the anemone fish from its predators]] Every living thing interacts with other organisms and its environment. One reason that biological systems can be difficult to study is that so many different interactions with other organisms and the environment are possible, even on the smallest of scales. A microscopic bacterium responding to a local sugar gradient is responding to its environment as much as a lion is responding to its environment when it searches for food in the African savannah. For any given species, behaviors can be co-operative, aggressive, parasitic or symbiotic. Matters become more complex when two or more different species interact in an ecosystem. Studies of this type are the province of ecology.

Scope of biology

Main article: List of biology disciplines Biology has become such a vast research enterprise that it is not generally regarded as a single discipline, but as a number of clustered sub-disciplines. This article considers four broad groupings. The first group consists of those disciplines that study the basic structures of living systems: cells, genes etc.; the second group considers the operation of these structures at the level of tissues, organs, and bodies; the third group considers organisms and their histories; the final constellation of disciplines focuses on their interactions. It is important to note, however, that these boundaries, groupings, and descriptions are a simplified characterization of biological research. In reality, the boundaries between disciplines are fluid, and most disciplines frequently borrow techniques from each other. For example, evolutionary biology leans heavily on techniques from molecular biology to determine DNA sequences, which assist in understanding the genetic variation of a population; and physiology borrows extensively from cell biology in describing the function of organ systems.

Structure of life

DNA sequences and structures]] Main articles: Molecular biology, Cell biology, Genetics, Developmental biology Molecular biology is the study of biology at a molecular level. This field overlaps with other areas of biology, particularly with genetics and biochemistry. Molecular biology chiefly concerns itself with understanding the interactions between the various systems of a cell, including the interrelationship of DNA, RNA, and protein synthesis and learning how these interactions are regulated. Cell biology studies the physiological properties of cells, as well as their behaviors, interactions, and environment. This is done both on a microscopic and molecular level. Cell biology researches both single-celled organisms like bacteria and specialized cells in multicellular organisms like humans. Understanding cell composition and how they function is fundamental to all of the biological sciences. Appreciating the similarities and differences between cell types is particularly important in the fields of cell and molecular biology. These fundamental similarities and differences provide a unifying theme, allowing the principles learned from studying one cell type to be extrapolated and generalized to other cell types. Genetics is the science of genes, heredity, and the variation of organisms. In modern research, genetics provides important tools in the investigation of the function of a particular gene, or the analysis of genetic interactions. Within organisms, genetic information generally is carried in chromosomes, where it is represented in the chemical structure of particular DNA molecules. Genes encode the information necessary for synthesizing proteins, which in turn play a large role in influencing (though, in many instances, not completely determining) the final phenotype of the organism. Developmental biology studies the process by which organisms grow and develop. Originating in embryology, modern developmental biology studies the genetic control of cell growth, differentiation, and "morphogenesis," which is the process that gives rise to tissues, organs, and anatomy. Model organisms for developmental biology include the round worm Caenorhabditis elegans, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, the zebrafish Brachydanio rerio, the mouse Mus musculus, and the weed Arabidopsis thaliana.

Physiology of organisms

Main articles: Physiology, Anatomy Physiology studies the mechanical, physical, and biochemical processes of living organisms by attempting to understand how all of the structures function as a whole. The theme of "structure to function" is central to biology. Physiological studies have traditionally been divided into plant physiology and animal physiology, but the principles of physiology are universal, no matter what particular organism is being studied. For example, what is learned about the physiology of yeast cells can also apply to human cells. The field of animal physiology extends the tools and methods of human physiology to non-human species. Plant physiology also borrows techniques from both fields. Anatomy is an important branch of physiology and considers how organ systems in animals, such as the nervous, immune, endocrine, respiratory, and circulatory systems, function and interact. The study of these systems is shared with medically oriented disciplines such as neurology and immunology.

Diversity and evolution of organisms

immunology of a population of organisms is sometimes depicted as if travelling on a fitness landscape. The arrows indicate the preferred flow of a population on the landscape, and the points A, B, and C are local optima. The red ball indicates a population that moves from a very low fitness value to the top of a peak]] Main articles: Evolutionary biology, Botany, Zoology Evolutionary biology is concerned with the origin and descent of species, as well as their change over time, and includes scientists from many taxonomically-oriented disciplines. For example, it generally involves scientists who have special training in particular organisms such as mammalogy, ornithology, or herpetology, but use those organisms as systems to answer general questions about evolution. Evolutionary biology also makes use of paleontologists, who use the fossil record to answer questions about the mode and tempo of evolution, as well as theoreticians in areas such as population genetics and evolutionary theory. In the 1990s, developmental biology re-entered evolutionary biology from its initial exclusion from the modern synthesis through the study of evolutionary developmental biology. Related fields which are often considered part of evolutionary biology are phylogenetics, systematics, and taxonomy. The two major traditional taxonomically-oriented disciplines are botany and zoology. Botany is the scientific study of plants. Botany covers a wide range of scientific disciplines that study the growth, reproduction, metabolism, development, diseases, and evolution of plant life. Zoology involves the study of animals, including the study of their physiology within the fields of anatomy and embryology. The common genetic and developmental mechanisms of animals and plants is studied in molecular biology, molecular genetics, and developmental biology. The ecology of animals is covered under behavioral ecology and other fields.

Classification of life

The dominant classification system is called Linnaean taxonomy, which includes ranks and binomial nomenclature. How organisms are named is governed by international agreements such as the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN), the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), and the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria (ICNB). A fourth Draft BioCode was published in 1997 in an attempt to standardize naming in these three areas, but it has yet to be formally adopted. The International Code of Virus Classification and Nomenclature (ICVCN) remains outside the BioCode.

Interactions of organisms

International Code of Virus Classification and Nomenclature]] Main articles: Ecology, Ethology, Behavior, Biogeography Ecology studies the distribution and abundance of living organisms, and the interactions between organisms and their environment. The environment of an organism includes both its habitat, which can be described as the sum of local abiotic factors such as climate and geology, as well as the other the organisms that share its habitat. Ecological systems are studied at several different levels, from individuals and populations to ecosystems and the biosphere. As can be surmised, ecology is a science that draws on several disciplines. Ethology studies animal behavior (particularly of social animals such as primates and canids), and is sometimes considered a branch of zoology. Ethologists have been particularly concerned with the evolution of behavior and the understanding of behavior in terms of the theory of natural selection. In one sense, the first modern ethologist was Charles Darwin, whose book The expression of the emotions in animals and men influenced many ethologists. Biogeography studies the spatial distribution of organisms on the Earth, focusing on topics like plate tectonics, climate change, dispersal and migration, and cladistics.

History of the word "biology"

Formed by combining the Greek βίος (bios), meaning 'life', and λόγος (logos), meaning 'study of', the word "biology" in its modern sense seems to have been introduced independently by Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus (Biologie oder Philosophie der lebenden Natur, 1802) and by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (Hydrogéologie, 1802). The word itself is sometimes said to have been coined in 1800 by Karl Friedrich Burdach, but it appears in the title of Volume 3 of Michael Christoph Hanov's Philosophiae naturalis sive physicae dogmaticae: Geologia, biologia, phytologia generalis et dendrologia, published in 1766.

History

Main articles: History of biology, History of medicine, History of genetics Major discoveries in biology include:
- Cell theory
- Germ theory of disease
- Genetics
- Evolution
- DNA

Related topics

Main articles: List of biology topics

External links


- [http://www.rom.on.ca/biodiversity/biocode/biocode1997.html BioCode]: A proposal for organism naming.
- [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=Books NCBI Open-Access Books]
- PhyloCode, [http://www.ohiou.edu/phylocode/index.html]
- [http://tolweb.org/tree/phylogeny.html The Tree of Life]: A multi-authored, distributed Internet project containing information about phylogeny and biodiversity.
- [http://www.bioone.org/perlserv/?request=index-html BioOne] Bioscience research journals.
- [http://www.bionews.in/biologynews.htm Biology News] Biology News, Articles and Research discoversies.

Further reading


- Lynn Margulis, Five Kingdoms: An Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life on Earth, 3rd ed., St. Martin's Press, 1997, paperback, ISBN 0805072527 (many other editions)
- Neil Campbell, Biology (7th edition), Benjamin-Cummings Publishing Company, 2004, hardcover, ISBN 080537146X
- Category:School subjects als:Biologie ko:생물학 ms:Biologi ja:生物学 simple:Biology th:ชีววิทยา

Cybernetics

Cybernetics is the study of the communication and control of regulatory feedback, both in living beings and machines, and in combinations of the two. The term cybernetics stems from the Greek Κυβερνήτης (kybernetes - meaning steersman, governor, pilot, or rudder; the same root as government). It became a powerful vogue idea from 1948 to the 1960s; but since the 1970s use of the term has faded. A current near-synonym is systems theory. A more philosophical definition, suggested in 1958 by Louis Couffignal, one of the pioneers of cybernetics in the 1930s, considers cybernetics as "the art of assuring efficiency of action" (see external links for reference).

History

The modern study of cybernetics began at the intersection of neurology, electronic network theory and logic modelling around the time of WWII. The name 'cybernetics' was coined by Norbert Wiener to denote the study of "teleological mechanisms" and was popularized through his book Cybernetics, or control and communication in the animal and machine, (1948) The word cybernetics ('cybernétique') had, unbeknownst to Wiener, also been used in 1834 by the physicist André-Marie Ampère (1775-1836) to denote the sciences of government in his classification system of human knowledge. It was also used by Plato in The Republic to signify the governance of people. The word governor and govern is also derived from the same Greek root. The study of "teleological mechanisms" in machinery (i.e. machines with corrective feedback) dates back at least to the late 1700s when James Watt's steam engine was equipped with a governor. In 1868 James Clerk Maxwell published a theoretical article on governors. In 1938 the Romanian scientist Stefan Odobleja published in Paris Psychologie consonantiste describing many cybernetic principles. In the 1940s the study and mathematical modelling of regulatory processes became a continuing research effort and two key articles were published in 1943. These papers were "Behavior, Purpose and Teleology" by Arturo Rosenblueth, Norbert Wiener, and Julian Bigelow; and the paper "A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity" by Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts. Cybernetics as a discipline was firmly established by Wiener, McCulloch and others, such as William Ross Ashby and Grey Walter. Together with the US and UK, an important geographical locus of early cybernetics was France where Wiener's book was first published. In the spring of 1947, Wiener was invited to a congress on harmonic analysis, held in Nancy, France and organized by the bourbakist mathematician, Szolem Mandelbrojt (1899-1983), uncle of the world famous mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot. During this stay in France, Wiener received the offer to write a manuscript on the unifying character of this part of applied mathematics, which is found in the study of Brownian motion and in telecommunication engineering. The following summer, back in the United States, Wiener decided to introduce the neologism cybernetics into his scientific theory. Wiener popularized the social implications of cybernetics, drawing analogies between automatic systems such as a regulated steam engine and human institutions in his best-selling The Human Use of Human Beings : Cybernetics and Society (Houghton-Mifflin, 1950). John Nash and Reinhard Selten won the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (also known as the Nobel Prize in Economics) in 1994 for their work on game theory, along with John Harsanyi who developed the analysis of games of incomplete information. In 2005 the game theorists Thomas Schelling and Robert Aumann won the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Scope

In scholarly terms, cybernetics is the study of systems and control in an abstracted sense — that is, it is not grounded in any one empirical field. The emphasis is on the functional relations that hold between the different parts of a system, rather than the parts themselves. These relations include the transfer of information, and circular relations (feedback) that result in emergent phenomena such as self-organization, and autopoiesis. The main innovation brought about by cybernetics is an understanding of goal-directedness or purpose as resulting from a negative feedback loop which minimizes the deviation between the perceived situation and the desired situation (goal). Cybernetics is somewhat erroneously associated in many people's minds with robotics, due to uses such as Douglas Adams' Sirius Cybernetics Corporation and the concept of a cyborg, a term first popularized by Clynes and Kline in 1960. Ampère's earlier use of the term echoes in the development of second-order cybernetics, which includes observers as part of whatever system is being studied.

Major fields


- General cybernetics (K1 and K2)
  - connectionism
  - decision theory
  - game theory
  - information theory
  - semiotics
  - synergetics
  - systems theory
- Applied cybernetics (K3)
  - Anthropocybernetics
    - Microanthropocybernetics (Psychocybernetics)
    - Macroanthropocybernetics (Soziocybernetics)
  - Biomedical cybernetics
    - Biological cybernetics
    - Medical cybernetics
  - Engineering cybernetics
  - Managerial cybernetics
- Second-order cybernetics

See also


- complex systems
- machine augmented intelligence
- brain implant

References


- Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, (Hermann Editions in Paris; Cambridge: MIT Press,Wiley & Sons in NY 1948),
- Ashby, W. R. (1956) Introduction to Cybernetics. Methuen, London. (electronically republished at [http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/books/IntroCyb.pdf]).
- Heylighen F. & Joslyn C. (2001): "[http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/Cybernetics-EPST.pdf Cybernetics and Second Order Cybernetics]", in: R.A. Meyers (ed.), Encyclopedia of Physical Science & Technology (3rd ed.), Vol. 4, (Academic Press, New York), p. 155-170.
- Pangaro, Paul (1990): "Cybernetics--A Definition", available at [http://pangaro.com/published/cyber-macmillan.html]
- Manfred E. Clynes, and Nathan S. Kline, (1960) "Cyborgs and Space", Astronautics, September, pp. 26-27 and 74-75; reprinted in Gray, Mentor, and Figueroa-Sarriera, eds., The Cyborg Handbook, New York: Routledge, 1995, pp. 29-34.

External links


- [http://www.rmcybernetics.com Cybernetics projects, Physics, and High Voltage]
- [http://egodeath.com Ego Death and Self-Control Cybernetics]
- [http://histm2.free.fr/H.Couffign.htm Louis Couffignal's photos & documents]
- [http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/indexASC.html Web Dictionary of Cybernetics and Systems]
- [http://www.gwu.edu/~asc/slide/s1.html Glossary Slideshow (136 slides)]
- [http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/DEFAULT.html Principia Cybernetica Web]
- [http://www.systems-thinking.de Mindmap-based-page by Ragnar Heil]
- [http://www.cybsoc.org The Cybernetics Society]
- [http://perso.wanadoo.fr/nathalie.diaz/html/Approche%20syst.htm The Systemic Approach : an introduction]
- [http://www.infoamerica.org/documentos_word/shannon-wiener.htm Cybernetics and Information Theory in the United States, France and the Soviet Union]
- [http://www.medical-cybernetics.de Medizinische Kybernetik | Medical Cybernetics]
- [http://open-site.org/Science/Mathematics/Applied/Cybernetics/ Cybernetics category in the Open Encyclopedia Project]
- [http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/~gossimit/ifsr/francois/papers/systemics_and_cybernetics_in_a_historical_perspective.pdf Systemics and cybernetics in a historical perspective (pdf document)] : ([http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/~gossimit/ifsr/francois/ more related pdf documents])
- [http://earthops.net/klaatu/delgado.html Dr Jose Delgado / Cybernetic brain implants]
- [http://www.smithsrisca.demon.co.uk/cybernetics.html Basics of Cybernetics] Category:Systems theory Category:Control theory ja:サイバネティックス

Politics

Politics is the process by which decisions are made for a given society. The method of making decisions for groups varies, but the act of decision making is the key component that characterises politics. Although it is generally applied to governments, politics is also observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions. Political science is the study of political behavior and examines the acquisition and application of power, i.e. the ability to impose one's will on another. One theorist, Harold Lasswell, has defined politics as "who gets what, when, and how." Another definition of 'politics' is: "how power is distributed within a group or system".

A natural state

In 1651, Thomas Hobbes published his most famous work, Leviathan, in which he proposed a model of early human development to justify the creation of human associations. Hobbes described an ideal state of nature wherein every person had equal right to every resource in nature and was free to use any means to acquire those resources. He noted that such an arrangement created a “war of all against all” (bellum omnium contra omnes). Further, he noted that men would enter into a social contract and would give up absolute rights for certain protections. While it appears that social cooperation and dominance hierarchies predate human societies, Hobbes’s model illustrates a rationale for the creation of societies (polities).

Early history

V.G. Childe describes the transformation of human society that took place around 6000 BCE as an urban revolution. Among the features of this new type of civilization were the institutionalization of social stratification, non-agricultural specialised crafts (including priests and lawyers), taxation, and writing. All of which require clusters of densely populated settlements - city-states. The word "Politics" is derived from the Greek word for city-state, "Polis". Corporate, religious, academic and every other polity, especially those constrained by limited resources, contain dominance hierarchy and therefore politics. Politics is most often studied in relation to the administration of governments. The oldest form of government was tribal organization. Rule by elders was supplanted by monarchy, and a system of Feudalism as an arrangement where a single family dominated the political affairs of a community. Monarchies have existed in one form or another for the past 5000 years of human history.

Definitions


- Power is the ability to impose one's will on another. It implies a capacity for force, i.e violence.
- Authority is the power to enforce laws, to exact obedience, to command, to determine, or to judge.
- Legitimacy is an attribute of government gained through the acquisition and application of power in accordance with recognized or accepted standards or principles.
- A government is the body that has the authority to make and enforce rules or laws.

Political power

Samuel Gompers’ often paraphrased maxim,"Reward your friends and punish your enemies," hints at two of the five types of power recognized by social psychologists: incentive power (the power to reward) and coercive power (the power to punish). Arguably the other three grow out of these two. Legitimate power, the power of the policeman or the referee, is the power given to an individual by a recognized authority to enforce standards of behavior. Legitimate power is similar to coercive power in that unacceptable behavior is punished by fine or penalty. Referent power is bestowed upon individuals by virtue of accomplishment or attitude. Fulfillment of the desire to feel similar to a celebrity or a hero is the reward for obedience. Expert power springs from education or experience. Following the lead of an experienced coach is often rewarded with success. Expert power is conditional to the circumstances. A brain surgeon is no help when your pipes are leaking.

Authority and legitimacy

Max Weber identified three sources of legitimacy for authority known as (tripartite classification of authority). He proposed three reasons why people followed the orders of those who gave them:

Traditional

Traditional authorities receive loyalty because they continue and support the preservation of existing values, the status quo. Traditional authority has the longest history. Patriarchal (and more rarely Matriarchal) societies gave rise to hereditary monarchies where authority was given to descendants of previous leaders. Followers submit to this authority because "we've always done it that way." Examples of traditional authoritarians include kings and queens.

Charismatic

Charismatic authority grows out of the personal charm or the strength of an individual personality (see cult of personality for the most extreme version). Charismatic regimes are often short lived, seldom outliving the charismatic figure that leads them. Examples include Hitler, Napoleon, and Mao.

Legal-rational

Legal-Rational authorities receive their ability to compel behavior by virtue of the office that they hold. It is the authority that demands obedience to the office rather than the office holder. Modern democracies are examples of legal-rational regimes.

References

GOMPERS,SAMUEL; “Men of Labor! Be Up and Doing,” editorial, American Federationist, May 1906, p. 319

See also


- Politics (disambiguation)
- Democracy
- History of democracy
- List of democracy and elections-related topics
- List of years in politics
- List of politics by country articles
- Political corruption
- Political economy
- Political movement
- Political parties of the world
- Political party
- Political psychology
- Political sociology
- Political spectrum
- Music and politics Category:Ethics Category:Topic lists ko:정치 ms:Politik ja:政治 simple:Politics th:การเมือง

Law

:This article is about law in society. For other possible meanings, see law (disambiguation). Law (a loanword from Old Norse lag), in politics and jurisprudence, is a set of rules or norms of conduct which mandate, proscribe or permit specified relationships among people and organizations, provide methods for ensuring the impartial treatment of such people, and provide punishments of/for those who do not follow the established rules of conduct. Law is typically administered through a system of courts, in which judges hear disputes between parties and apply a set of rules in order to provide an outcome that is just and fair. The manner in which law is administered is known as a legal system, which typically has developed through tradition in each country. Legal practitioners, most often, must be professionally trained in the law before they are permitted to advocate for a party in a court of law, draft legal documents, or give legal advice.

Legal traditions

There are generally four broad legal traditions that are practiced in the world today.

Civil law

The Civilian system of law is a codified law that sets out a comprehensive system of rules that are applied and interpreted by judges. It is by and large the most commonly practiced system of law in the world, with almost 60 % of the world's population living in a country ruled on the civilian system. The most important difference to common law is that normally, only legislative enactments are considered to be legally binding, but not precedent cases. However, as a practical matter, courts normally follow their previous decisions. Furthermore, in some civil law systems (e.g. in Germany), the writings of legal scholars have considerable influence on the courts. In most jurisdictions the core areas of private law are codified in the form of a civil code, but in some, like Scotland it remains uncodified. The civil law system has its origins in Roman law, which was adopted by scholars and courts from the late middle ages onwards. Most modern systems go back to the 19th century codification movement. The civil codes of many, particularly Latin countries and former French and Spanish colonies closely trail the Code de Napoléon in some fashion. However, this is not true for most Central and Eastern European, Scandinavian and East Asian countries. Notably, the German BGB was developed from Roman law with reference to German legal tradition. The importance of the Code Napoléon should also not be overemphasized as it covers only the core areas of private law, while other codes and statutes govern fields such as corporate law, administrative law, tax law and constitutional law.

Common law

The Common law is an Anglo-Saxon legal tradition, based on unwritten laws developed through judicial decisions that create binding precedent. The common law system is currently in practice in Australia, Canada (excluding Quebec), United Kingdom, and the United States (excluding Louisiana). In addition to these countries several others have adapted the common law system into a mixed system. For example, India and Nigera operate largely on a common law system but incorporate a good deal of customary law and religious law.

Customary law

Customary law are systems of law that has evolved largely on their own within a given country and have been adapted to meet the needs of the particular culture. Note that customary law may also be relevant within jurisdictions following another legal tradition in fields or subfields of law where no legislative enactment exists. For example, in Austria, scholars of private law often claim that customary law continues to exist, whereas public law scholars dispute this claim. (In any case, it is hard to find any practically relevant examples.)

Religious law

Many countries base their system of law on religious tenants. The most dominant system of this form of law is Muslim law (or "Sharia") which is a codified law that is found within the Koran. These laws deal primarily with the personal rights and dispute resolution between individuals. It is used in some Middle Eastern nations; such as in the Iran and Saudi Arabia. On a smaller level there are still regions of the world that practice canon law, which is followed by Catholics and Anglicans, and a similar legal system is used by the Eastern Orthodox Church. The same can be said for Jewish law (halakha or halacha), which is followed by Orthodox and Conservative Jews, in substantially different forms.

Bodies of law

In the broadest sense, bodies of law can be subdivided on the basis of who the parties to an action are. It is frequent that practiced fields of law overlap into several of these bodies of law.

Private law

The area of private law in a legal system concerns law that oversees disputes between private individuals. This area is, to a large extent, the most comprehensive area of law, dealing with all non-criminal harm one person does to another.

Public law

The area of public law, in a general sense, is the law in a given legal system that concerns disputes between the government and private individuals residing within the country. The state can bring actions against people for criminal acts, as well as breach of regulatory laws. Equally, individuals can bring actions against the government for harm it has done. This includes grounds on the basis of a breach of regulations, legislate on matters beyond their competence, or violation of an individuals rights. These last two points are often protected under a countries’ constitution.

Procedural law

Procedural law concerns the areas of law that regulate how all actions are dealt with. This includes who can have access to the court system, how complaints are submitted, and what are the rights of the parties involved. Procedural law is often known as "adjective" law as it is the law that concern how other laws are to be applied. Typically, this is broadly covered by a government’s civil and criminal procedure rules. But equally this includes the law of evidence which determines what means are used to prove facts, as well as, the law regarding remedies.

International law

International law governs the relations between states, or between citizens of different states, or international organizations. Its two primary sources are customary law and treaties.

Philosophy of law

Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy and jurisprudence which studies basic questions about law and legal systems, such as "what is the law?", "what are the criteria for legal validity?", "what is the relationship between law and morality?", and many other similar questions. In the western tradition there are several schools of thought on the philosophical basis of law. First, there is natural law, which attempts to describe law as an inherent quality in humans that is derived from natures. Second, there is the positivism which believes that law is a purely human-made construct that society uses to maintain social order. Third, there is legal realism which believes that law is an arbitrary set of rules that are largely established through the tastes and preferences of judges.

Anthropology of law

:See main discussion at Honour Law has an anthropological dimension. It has been recognized from Montesquieu to the present that law is shaped by the kind of society in which it is practised. One continuum into which various societies can be placed contrasts the "culture of law" with the "culture of honour". In order to have a culture of law, people must dwell in a society where a government exists whose authority is hard to evade and generally recognised as legitimate. People take their grievances before the government and its agents, who arbitrate disputes and enforce penalties. This behaviour is contrasted with the culture of honour, where respect for persons and groups stems from fear of the revenge they may exact if their person, property, or prerogatives are not respected. Cultures of law must be maintained. They can be eroded by declining respect for the law, achieved either by weak government unable to wield its authority, or by burdensome restrictions that attempt to forbid behaviour prevalent in the culture or in some subculture of the society. When a culture of law declines, there is a possibility that an culture of honor will arise in its place.

History

Practice of law

Practice of law is typically overseen by either a government organization or independent regulating body such as a bar association or barrister society. To practice law – i.e. appear in front of a judge on behalf of someone, draft legal documents, etc. – the practitioner must be certified by the regulating body. This usually entails a two or three year program at a university’s faculty of law or a law school, followed by an entrance examination (eg. bar admissions). Once accredited, a legal practitioners will often work in law firm, as well as in government, a private corporation, or even work as sole practitioner. A significant component to the practice of law in the common law tradition involves legal research in order to determine the current state of the law. This usually entails exploring case reporters, legal periodicals, and legislation.

See also


- Law topics overview
- List of areas of law
- List of legal topics
- List of legal terms
- List of jurists
- List of legal abbreviations
- List of case law lists
- List of law firms

Further reading


- Cheyenne Way: Conflict & Case Law in Primitive Jurisprudence, Karl N. Llewellyn and E. Adamson Hoebel, University of Oklahoma Press, 1983, trade paperback, 374 pages, ISBN 0806118555
- The Bilingual LSP Dictionary. Principles and Practice for Legal language, Sandro Nielsen, Gunter Narr Verlag 1994.
- [http://browse.addall.com/Browse/Author/2088479-1 Other books by Karl N. Llewellyn]
- David, René, and John E. C. Brierley. Major Legal Systems in the World Today: An Introduction to the Comparative Study of Law. 3d ed. London: Stevens, 1985 (ISBN 0420473408).

External links


- [http://www.legalmatch.com LegalMatch] Legal Resource
- [http://ausicl.com The Australian Institute of Comparative Legal Systems]
- [http://www.lpig.org Law and Policy Institutions]
- [http://www.llbee.com/news.php?p=news Laws External Education- Legal News By Subject]
- [http://www.4lawschool.com 4LawSchool- Legal Reference]
- [http://ww3.definitions-legal.com:8567/ Law, Legal Definitions & Reference]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/1996-3/law.htm Essentials of Law-Related Education. ERIC Digest.]
- [http://www.law.cornell.edu LII - Topical overviews, US Supreme Court decisions, US Code (Acts of Congress)]
- [http://www.worldlii.org WorldLII - The World Legal Information Institute]
- [http://www.lawmoose.com LawMoose Legal Reference Library]
- [http://legallinks.jenkinslaw.org Legal Research Links]
- [http://www.findlaw.com FindLaw]
- [http://ausicl.com The Australian Institute of Comparative Legal Systems]
- [http://www.nolo.com/glossary.cfm Everybody's Legal Glossary] - From Nolo
- [http://www.alllaw.com/ AllLaw]
- [http://legal.wikicities.com/ WikiCities Legal Site]
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
  - [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/law-ideology/ Law and Ideology]
  - [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/law-language/ Law and Language]
- [http://en.jurispedia.org/ The shared law] in Jurispedia
- [http://www.avocatura.com Romanian Law]
- [http://www.thedailylaw.com Daily Law news]
- [http://members.fortunecity.com/victorcauchi/lex/lexindex.htm Laws of Malta] Chapter summaries and a general Glossary of definitions.
- [http://LawyerIntl.com LawyerIntl.com] Legal Resource and Law Dictionary
- [http://LawGuru.com LawGuru.com] Legal Portal
- [http://forumprawne.org Prawo i porady prawne] - web discussion board about Polish law Category:Core issues in ethics ja:法 (法学) simple:Law th:กฎหมาย

Theology

Theology is reasoned discourse concerning God (Greek θεος, theos, "God", + λογος, logos, "word" or "reason"). It can also refer to the study of other religious topics. A theologian is a person learned in theology. religious topics

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