This paper explores Wagner's early comedic opera, Das Liebesverbot. Though his ‘mature comedy’ Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg has been the focus of much scholarly attention, the composer's first and only other foray into the genre has been much less studied and often outright dismissed. While contemporary scholars have increasingly looked to Wagner's pre-Dutchman operas, they often read them purely in light of his later works; with this examination of his adaptation of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, I offer a consideration of the young composer's work in its own right. After considering issues of textual and cultural adaptation, this paper offers close readings of several passages of the opera, in tandem with parallel scenes from the original play-text, to show how Wagner's transformation of this not-quite-so-comedic comedy into an expression of the carnivalesque reveals an expansive and cosmopolitan artistic and political philosophy during a period during which he was greatly influenced by the authors of the Junges Deutschland movement. Such a reconsideration disrupts the standard conception of a composer who is still often considered, in his own words, the ‘most German being’. Here, we see Wagner at arguably his most cosmopolitan, adapting the work of an English playwright he revered, altering the plot so that it ostensibly aligned with the ideological outlook of his German revolutionary colleagues, and setting it to music of a decidedly French and Italian flavour, all this in a way that still preserves many of the same, seemingly contradictory themes present in the original play.

This paper argues that we ought to rethink the harm-reduction prioritization strategy that has shaped early responses to acute resource scarcity (particularly of intensive care unit beds) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although some authors have claimed that “[t]here are no egalitarians in a pandemic,” it is noted here that many observers and commentators have been deeply concerned about how prioritization policies that proceed on the basis of survival probability may unjustly distribute the burden of mortality and morbidity, even while reducing overall deaths. The paper further argues that there is a general case in favor of an egalitarian approach to medical rationing that has been missed in the ethical commentary so far; egalitarian approaches to resource rationing minimize wrongful harm. This claim is defended against some objections and the paper concludes by explaining why we should consider the possibility that avoiding wrongful harm is more important than avoiding harm simpliciter.

Robert Baker and Rosamond Rhodes each argue against the universality “common morality,” the approach to ethics that comprises four fundamental principles and their application in various settings. Baker contends that common morality cannot account for cultural diversity in the world and claims that a human rights approach is superior in the context of global health. Rhodes maintains that bioethics is not reducible to common morality because medical professionals have special privileges and responsibilities that people lack in everyday life. Baker fails to demonstrate how the human rights approach to global ethics is more sensitive to culture than the use of bioethics principles that comprise common morality. Rhodes has a narrow interpretation of “common morality,” which when understood more broadly, accounts for the special privileges and obligation of medical professionals.

This paper considers the relation between medical ethics (ME) and common morality (CM), professional norms, and moral philosophy. It proceeds by analyzing two recent book-length critical analyses of this relationship by Bob Baker in “The Structure of Moral Revolutions—Studies of Changes in the Morality of Abortion, Death, and the Bioethics Revolution” and Rosamond Rhodes in “The Trusted Doctor—Medical Ethics and Professionalism.” It argues that despite the strengths of these critical arguments, there is nevertheless a relationship between ME, understood as the professional ethics of the healthcare professions, and both CM and moral philosophy. It also argues that ME cannot and should not be understood purely as the internally developed professional norms of the medical or healthcare professions.

In her important and well-known discussion “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion,” Mary Anne Warren regrets that “it is not possible to produce a satisfactory defense of a woman’s right to obtain an abortion without showing that the fetus is not a human being, in the morally relevant sense.” Unlike some more cautious philosophers, Warren thinks that we can definitively demonstrate that the fetus is not a person. In this paper, Warren’s argument is critically examined with a focus especially on the question of the foundation and the boundaries of the moral community. The fundamental thesis of the paper is that Warren’s approach is flawed for at least four reasons: (1) that being a person is not as obviously central to having full moral rights as Warren assumes, (2) that her exclusivism regarding moral status has dubious moral consequences independent of the abortion issue, (3) that it is not clear that a fetus is not a person, even on Warren’s own criteria, and (4) her criteria for personhood are themselves suspect.

At Supraśl 3 in north-eastern Poland, four Bell Beaker features contained small quantities of burnt and highly fragmented human and animal bones and various, mostly fragmented, artefacts. These assemblages included twenty-four flint arrowheads, most of which bore traces of grinding, though not all were ground to the same extent. A comprehensive macroscopic and microscopic analysis was undertaken to determine the process of shaping these arrowheads and the possible reasons for grinding them, especially as no local flint working was recorded at the site. The authors suggest that the grinding of arrowheads reflects both practical and ritual concerns, possibly originating in emulation of techniques used by the Rzucewo culture and signalling contacts with the wider Bell Beaker milieu.

In responding to my critics, James Childress, Tom Beauchamp, Soren Holm, and Ruth Macklin, I reprise my arguments for medical ethics being an uncommon morality. I also elaborate on points that required further clarification. I explain the role of trust and trustworthiness in the creation of a profession. I also describe my views on the relationship of the medical profession to the society in which medicine is practiced. Finally, I defend my claim that medical ethics “is constructed by medical professionals for medical professionals” by describing the profession’s unique vantage point for regulating and policing the profession’s uncommon powers and privileges.

Tom Beauchamp and James Childress‘s revolutionary textbook, Principles of Biomedical Ethics, shaped the field of bioethics in America and around the world. Midway through the Principle’s eight editions, however, the authors jettisoned their attempt to justify the four principles of bioethics —autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice—in terms of ethical theory, replacing it with the idea that these principles are part of a common morality shared by all rational persons committed to morality, at all times, and in all places. Other commentators contend that their theory has never been empirically confirmed and is unfalsifiable, since counterexamples can be deemed irrational, or as held by those living lives not committed to morality. The thesis of this paper is that common morality theory is the artifact of a category mistake—conflating common areas regulated by moral norms with common norms regulating moral conduct—that accords mid-twentieth century American liberal morality the status of transcultural, transtemporal, eternal moral truths. Such a conception offers bioethicists no tools for analyzing moral change—moral progress, regress, reform, evolution, devolution, or revolution—no theoretical basis for deconstructing structural classicism, racism, and sexism, or for facilitating international cooperation on ethical issues in the context of culturally based moral differences.

Tom Beauchamp and James Childress are confident that their four principles—respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice—are globally applicable to the sorts of issues that arise in biomedical ethics, in part because those principles form part of the common morality (a set of general norms to which all morally committed persons subscribe). Inevitably, however, the question arises of how the principlist ought to respond when presented with apparent counter-examples to this thesis. I examine a number of strategies the principlist might adopt in order to retain common morality theory in the face of supposed counter-examples. I conclude that only a strategy that takes a non-realist view of the common morality’s principles is viable. Unfortunately, such a view is likely not to appeal to the principlist.

Engagement in health research is increasingly practised worldwide. Yet many questions remain under debate in the ethics field about its contribution to health research and these debates have largely not been informed by those who have been engaged in health research. This paper addresses the following key questions: what should the ethical goals of engagement in health research be and how should it be performed? Qualitative data were generated by interviewing 22 people with lived experience, members of the public, and engagement managers about power sharing in health research. Thematic analysis of study data identified the following five themes: the value of engagement in research, ideal engagement, tokenistic engagement, terms to describe those engaged, and engagement roles in research. The paper presents that data and then considers what insights it offers for what engagement should look like—its ethical goals and approach—according to those being engaged.

The horses transporting men and merchandise were key actors in urban development at the very time they placed the city's ability to organize and adapt in doubt. Cities of the southernmost Netherlands and the Principality of Liège were forced to cope with the constant challenge represented by traffic in poorly designed arteries, with a morphology inherited from the medieval period and completely ill-suited to the movement of carriages and wagons. The problem posed by traffic in Belgian cities reached a critical threshold in the seventeenth century, a period in which we observe an increase in the number of horses and harnessed teams. The complications caused by this growing surge culminated in the next century and were marked by the formation of a police force obliged to face the challenge traffic represented. Consequently, numerous urban decisions were taken, transforming both the street's ‘lifestyle’ and physiognomy.

Recently rediscovered photographs of the remains of thirteen individuals buried in the Sado Valley Mesolithic shell middens of Poças de S. Bento and Arapouco, excavated in 1960 and 1962, show the potential of revisiting excavation archives with new methods. The analysis, which applies the principles of archaeothanatology and is enriched by experimental taphonomic research, confirmed details concerning the treatment of the dead body and provided new insights into the use of burial spaces. Some bodies may have been mummified prior to burial, a phenomenon possibly linked to their curation and transport, highlighting the significance of both the body and the burial place in Mesolithic south-western Portugal.

Recent work in economics has rediscovered the importance of belief-based utility for understanding human behaviour. Belief ‘choice’ is subject to an important constraint, however: people can only bring themselves to believe things for which they can find rationalizations. When preferences for similar beliefs are widespread, this constraint generates rationalization markets, social structures in which agents compete to produce rationalizations in exchange for money and social rewards. I explore the nature of such markets, I draw on political media to illustrate their characteristics and behaviour, and I highlight their implications for understanding motivated cognition and misinformation.