Wim J. van der Steen - Böcker

Most researchers would be amazed to discover that opinions they have about cherished themes in biology and medicine are biased. Van der Steen and Ho contend that logic and methodology are not well applied in biology and medicine, arguing that the impact of social and moral factors on claims within these two disciplines is underestimated. In response to this situation, Van der Steen and Ho present tools from logic and ethics for assessing existing literature. These tools will help to create sound articles and materials in the life sciences.After reviewing logic and methodological approaches, broad guidelines are used to place science in a social context. Examples from life sciences illustrate the implementation of logic, methodology, and guidelines in forty-five brief case studies. Each study includes comments on quoted and paraphrased passages from a single article or book. Cross-references facilitate the assimilation of lessons from the text. Students, researchers, and scholars in biology, biomedicine, philosophy, and ethics as applied to the life sciences will find this guide useful in improving their research and writing skills.

Legal and moral reasoning share much methodology, and they address similar problems. This volume charts two shared problems: the relation between theory, principles and particular judgments; and the role of facts and factual assertions in normative settings. The relation between 'theory' and 'practice' and between 'principle' and 'particular judgment' has become the subject of much debate in moral philosophy. In the ongoing debate, some moral philosophers refer to legal philosophy for a support of their views on the primacy of 'practice' over 'theory'. According to them, legal philosophy should have a more balanced view in that relation. In the contributions to Part One this claim is critically analysed. The role of the facts is underestimated in discussions on legal reasoning and legal theory, as well as moral reasoning and ethical theory. Factual statements enter into moral and legal discussions not only because they link the conclusion with a rule. They also play a role as background assumptions in supporting a theory. Its focus on the role of facts in normative reasoning makes this book of special interest to scholars of legal and moral argumentation.