EXPERIMENTAL JUSTIFICATION OF MODELING OF THE LIVER ABCESSES

Goal. Develop a model of purulent liver abscess (GAP), which corresponds to all the classic signs of a delimited abscess. Material and methods. Simulation of GAP was carried out in an experiment on 60 laboratory animals. Under ultrasound control (UC), a double-lumen Fogerty catheter was inserted into the established portion of the liver, a cystic cavity was formed in 3 days, which was infected and after 3 days GAP was obtained. In the modeling of GAP, clinical, planimetric, microbiological, morphological and instrumental methods of investigation were used. Results. On the third day of the experiment, a round cystic cavity of the liver with a diameter of 1,8 cm3 was formed. Three days after infection, a classic purulent abscess develops, surrounded by a dense wall formed from the liver parenchyma. As a result of the experiment, a clinical, microbiological, morphological and instrumental justification for modeling GAP with all its classic features was obtained. The conclusion. The proposed method for modeling purulent liver abscess is economically and technically profitable, minimally traumatic, provides guaranteed formation of classical GAP in the shortest possible time.

Assessing the Consequences of Religious Inclusion

Many fear including religion in democratic politics because they think religious-political participation is likely to undermine public policies they value, from sexual freedoms to science education. This chapter uses a form of instrumental justification of democracy—John Dewey’s informational approach—in order to develop criteria that can determine when religious inclusion is likely to undermine crucial democratic purposes and when it will enhance them. These criteria include religion’s likely effect on the cognitive and identity diversity of the public sphere, and the public sphere’s openness and fallibility. They require analysis of the role that religious institutions play in the public sphere, demanding that citizens consider when and under what conditions religious activism publicizes relevant political information, and when it acts to prevent democratic institutions from gathering the information required to make good policy.

Why User Rights?

This chapter proposes a theory to justify the existence and scope of copyright user rights. The variety of identities and interests of copyright users, as well as the different means by which users experience copyright works call for a pluralistic theoretical approach to justify the existence and scope of user rights. Starting with the prima facie normative status of all ownership freedoms developed by James W. Harris (Property and Justice) the chapter refers to the instrumental justification of economic efficiency as a base for the existence and scope of user personal property rights in copies of copyright works. The influential instrumentalist justification of copyright to incent the creation and dissemination of works provides a theoretical basis to further define the existence and contours of user rights beyond the instances where users have property rights in copies of copyright works.

Individual rights and the democratic boundary problem

How should the geographic boundaries of democratic participation be set? This has been a notoriously difficult theoretical question, beset by paradoxes around determining democratic participants democratically. It also is seen as increasingly important in practical terms, amid deepening interdependence between states, immigration tensions, and suprastate regional integration. Numerous recent accounts have called for extending participation beyond the state. The case is generally made on intrinsic grounds: democracy demands it. Respect for individual autonomy is said to be violated when outsiders are deeply affected by decision processes, or subject to coercion from them, without being able to participate in them. Yet, familiar problems around restrictions on the autonomy of persistent democratic minorities remain in such accounts, and they could be magnified with expanded boundaries. An alternative approach is offered here, grounded in a rights-based instrumental justification for democracy. It sees participation as foundationally – though not solely – valuable as a means of promoting and protecting fundamental rights. It recommends extending participation boundaries to reinforce protections within regional and ultimately global institutions. Democratic participation would remain crucial at all levels, not principally as an expression of autonomy but to provide checks on power and promote accountability to individuals in multilevel polities.

Dilemmas of autonomy and happiness

Harry Brighouse has advanced an intriguing set of arguments about the place of human flourishing in liberal educational theory. In his book On Education, Brighouse argues that autonomy can be justified instrumentally because it promotes flourishing. He links flourishing to the psychological concept of `subjective wellbeing' and he spells out the implications of subjective wellbeing research for educational policy. Each of these moves, while promising, raises questions. It is unclear how the instrumental justification for autonomy is a political improvement for liberalism over other justifications, and the link between autonomy and flourishing can be questioned on empirical grounds. In addition, a focus on subjective wellbeing may be irrelevant to the central ethical considerations relating to education and economic growth. Finally, the use of social science research on subjective wellbeing may present problems if it is used to construct educational policies around the `central tendencies' of large populations while overlooking students with more eccentric preferences.

Consequentialism and Feminist Ethics

This essay attempts to show that sophisticated consequentialism is able to accommodate the concerns that have traditionally been raised by feminist writers in ethics. Those concerns have primarily to do with the fact that consequentialism is seen as both too demanding of the individual and neglectful of the agent's special obligations to family and friends. Here, I argue that instrumental justification for partiality can be provided, for example, even though an attitude of partiality is not characterized itself in instrumental terms.

Justice and Education

In asking whether a given view about education is justified, two distinct questions arise. The first asks whether a given educational program meets its intended end. The second asks whether a given end is an appropriate one for any such program to seek. Harry Brighouse has recently argued that children should be taught the skills and methods of rational inquiry. In this article, I argue that his instrumental justification is not compelling. Independently of this, the end that Brighouse charges schools with pursuing - providing children with equal opportunity to live well - is not, I argue, justified non-instrumentally. I argue that every non-instrumental justification must be given in terms of Rawlsian public reasons and that Brighouse's is not. After establishing this, I provide such a justification for my view, which is that schools should provide children with equal opportunities for developing an ability to revise rationally conceptions of the good, in part, by teaching the skills and methods of rational inquiry. In closing, I consider communitarian-based objections to both Brighouse's view and my own, concluding that none of them succeed.