College of Medicine

Xavier University School of Medicine, Aruba, is an offshore
medical school located in the Dutch Caribbean. Most of its
students come from the United States and Canada. Yet, they
are immensely diverse in their religious affiliation. A study was
conducted with students, asking them what their religious affiliation
is. Then, they were presented with a series of hypothetical
cases dealing with abortion, in vitro technology, embryonic
stem cells, and euthanasia. They were asked to give their moral
evaluation. The results came out showing that, as a general
trend, respondents form their ethical opinions in the medical
field, independently of the doctrines of their religious affiliations.

As a result of Catalonia’s ban of bullfighting in 2011, in Spain there
has been a renowned interest in the ethical debate about bullfighting.
Most defenders of bullfighting are Spaniards, but the most systematic
is French philosopher Francis Wolff. In this article, I review Wolff’s
most persistent arguments in favor of bullfighting, and I offer my
own refutations. Wolff argues bullfighting is not torture, bulls do not
suffer, bulls must die, and bullfighting tradition must be preserved.
All of these claims are dubious, as they are based on shaky assumptions
and fallacious reasoning.

Past life regression therapy is used by some physicians in cases with some mental diseases. Anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and gender dysphoria have all been treated using life regression therapy by some doctors on the assumption that they reflect problems in past lives. Although it is not supported by psychiatric associations, few medical associations have actually condemned it as unethical. In this article, I argue that past life regression therapy is unethical for two basic reasons. First, it is not evidence-based. Past life regression is based on the reincarnation hypothesis, but this hypothesis is not supported by evidence, and in fact, it faces some insurmountable conceptual problems. If patients are not fully informed about these problems, they cannot provide an informed consent, and hence, the principle of autonomy is violated. Second, past life regression therapy has the great risk of implanting false memories in patients, and thus, causing significant harm. This is a violation of the principle of non-malfeasance, which is surely the most important principle in medical ethics.

Racial determinations that lead to race-based treatments and mistreatments have many harmful social effects. When used in the practice of medicine, can racial determinants lead to good outcomes? This is an emerging question in medical ethics. It is undoubtedly
true that some individuals are more genetically prone to some diseases than others. However, should one rush to judgment with the belief that race may be a valid indicator in identifying diseases an individual is susceptible to? Furthermore, should race be considered in prescribing treatment? Illnesses such as sickle cell-anemia and Tay Sachs disease have long been thought to have a racial origin. This assumption is challenged in this paper. There have also been attempts to prescribe specific drugs for specific racial groups; but this is approach call for further inquiry. Belief in the presupposition that disease is a bio-psycho-social process implies that genetic predispositions are only one factor among many others that relate to the way things are socially constructed. This paper seeks to critique one’s view of the use of race as a criterion of medicine to prescribe treatment.

Joseph de Maistre is usually portrayed as Edmund Burke's French counterpart, as they both wrote important treatises against the French Revolution. Although Maistre did share many of Burke's conservative political views, he was much more than a political thinker. He was above all a religious thinker who interpreted political events through the prism of a particular retributionist theology. According to this theology, God punishes evil deeds, not only in the afterlife, but also in this terrestrial life; and sometimes, he may even use human tyrants as instruments of his wrath. This interpretation especially evident in Maistre's Considerations sur la France, an early work in his philosophical career. In that book, Maistre interprets the French Revolution as divine punishment, and in that regard, his views bear some similarities to the Deuteronomist historian in the Hebrew Bible, who interpreted the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian Exile, as divine punishment in retribution of Israel's sins.

The Anti Vaccination Movement grew out as a result of Andrew Wakefield's claims regarding the link between autism and vaccines. Although his claims have been massively refuted, and it was later evident that he engaged in gross ethical misconduct, adherents to the Anti Vaccination Movement persist in their belief that vaccines cause autism. In this article, I explore three psychological mechanisms that partly explain why the Anti Vaccination Movement keeps its strength. First, conditioning: most parents of autistic children discover their child's condition at around the same time they receive vaccines shots, and this facilitates the association of those two events in their minds. Second, modeling: the endorsement of the Anti Vaccination Movement by celebrities encourages people to believe in their mistaken theories. Third, agency detection: the Anti Vaccination Movement relies on conspiratorial thinking, and this way of thinking is based on the natural tendency of all humans to attribute agency to purposeless events.

This article describes how the use of violence channeled upon a victim can help regenerate social life in a community. Each Easter Sun-day, many Venezuelan communities perform 'Judas'burning', a ritual in which a puppet representing Judas is symbolically executed. This ritual created a process of collective expiation that propitiates social peace. This article analyzes how these phenomena take place in Potrerito and La Cañada, two villages in Zulia State, Venezuela.

La teoría de Girard sobre los mitos es claramente verificable:
abundan mitos en los que, en medio de una crisis sacrificial,
una víctima es ejecutada, la paz social se restablece, y la
víctima surge como un dios. Sin embargo, es dudoso que
esta teoría pueda ser falseada: el mismo Girard ha sostenido
que aquellos mitos en los que no hay violencia, también
están fundados en el mecanismo del chivo expiatorio, pero la
comunidad se ha encargado de borrar los rastros de violencia.
Si hemos de seguir el criterio falsasionista de Popper,
entonces la teoría mimética no puede pretender ser científica.
Para ilustrar esta dificultad, evalúo la reciente teoría de Hugo
Chávez según la cual, Simón Bolívar fue asesinado.

En este artículo se presentan dos perspectivas sobre uno de los más antiguos problemas planteados en la filosofía de la religión: si Dios es bueno y omnipotente, ¿cómo puede existir el mal? El filósofo alemán del siglo XVII, Gottfried Leibniz, ofreció una respuesta a este problema en su obra cumbre, Teodicea, argumentando que vivimos en el mejor de los mundos posibles. Un siglo después, Voltaire protes-tó contra la respuesta ofrecida por Leibniz, y la ridiculizó en su famosa novela, Cándido. Al final, las críticas de Voltaire han sido lo suficientemente contundentes como para que justifiquemos que, antes de preguntarnos por qué Dios permite el mal, nos preguntemos qué podemos hacer nosotros para aliviar el mal.

Este ensayo se presenta e intenta refutar algunos de los principales
argumentos creacionistas en contra de la teoría de la
evolución. Los creacionistas alegan, entre otros argumentos,
que la evolución es una teoría, pero no un hecho. Este alegato
es discutible en la medida en que se aclara qué es una teoría
científica. Los creacionistas también alegan que la teoría de la
evolución no es falseable y que el registro fósil es imperfecto;
asimismo, postulan que la selección natural no puede generar
ciertas estructuras complejas, en especial el ojo y el flagelo
bacteriano, argumentos que han dado pie al auge del movimiento
neo-creacionista del ‘Diseño Inteligente

After the collapse of the second Venezuelan Republic project and various other military failures elsewhere, Simon Bolivar managed to seize the region of Guayana in 1817, and set in Angostura as his base for guerilla operations against the Spanish. Despite the fact that he did not control the whole of Venezuela, he assembled a Congress in Angostura and delivered there his inaugural speech on February 15th, 1819. This speech, now known as the Angostura Address, is a prime document in the Bolivarian canon. Unfortunately, the Bolivar-hero cult rampant in Venezuela and Colombia (and to a lesser extent in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia), has promoted an extremely uncritical reading of this very important document. In occasion of its 200th Anniversary, this article offers a critical -yet ultimately sympathetic- reading of the Angostura Address. In this speech, Bolivar laid out his Enlightenment vision of freedom, yet he also displayed an authoritarian tendency.

El objetivo de este artículo es estudiar la forma en que el teórico de la comunicación, Marshall McLuhan,
entendía el desarrollo del arte. Para McLuhan, la imprenta impuso una forma de pensamiento ‘lineal’, extendiendo
estos principios a las formas artísticas. Pero, a partir de la era electrónica, Occidente marca un regreso a las formas
artísticas tribales, alejándose de la ‘linealidad’ que predominó desde la invención de la imprenta

El objetivo de este ensayo es tomar partido en la disputa entre los antropólogos Marshall Sahlins y Gananath Obeyesekere, utilizando a la obra de René Girard como instrumento teórico. De acuerdo a Sahlins, el capitán James Cook fue asesinado en Hawaii en 1779, y según testimonios posteriores, los nativos llegaron a identificar a Cook con Lono, dios de la agricultura. Obeyesekere mantiene que la versión de Sahlins es un mito colonialista de superioridad europea. La antropología de Girard nos permite comprender que, de acuerdo a la manera en que opera lo sagrado, es posible que efectivamente el capitán Cook haya sido identificado con un dios, respaldando así la posición de Sahlins.

In this article, we consider three metaphysical theories of personal identity: the soul theory, the body theory, and the psychological theory. Clinical cases are discussed as they present conceptual problems for each of these theories. For the soul theory, the case of Phineas Gage, and cases of pedophilic behavior due to a brain tumor are discussed. For the body theory, hypothetical cases of cephalosomatic anastomosis and actual cases of dicephalic parapagus and craniopagus parasiticus are discussed. For the psychological theory, cases of delusions and memory impairments are discussed. After a discussion of all these cases, we conclude that it is very difficult to unequivocally favor one of these theories, yet we argue that this discussion must be based not on abstract armchair speculation, but rather, consideration of real clinical cases.

Pakistan, Nigeria, and Afghanistan remain the only countries in the world where polio is still a serious threat. This review article addresses the political, sociological, and epidemiological factors behind the failure in eradication. A relatively popular Nigerian conspiracy theory about polio vaccines spread in Pakistan and, as a result, there is some considerable resistance to polio vaccination. Conspiracy theories about vaccines have a long history, and the fact that polio vaccinators were used as spies in order to plan for Bin Laden's death has made polio vaccination a bigger challenge. Furthermore, vaccination is strongly correlated with literacy and Pakistan is still struggling against illiteracy. However, these obstacles are by no means insurmountable, and a joint effort by the government, policymakers, education department, community mobilizers, and public health professionals can indeed make major improvements.

Marcion of Synope has long been considered a heretic by all Christian churches. He is frequently grouped with the Gnostic trends of Early Christianity, although this is not entirely accurate. Although he made a handsome financial contribution to the Church of Rome, he was eventually excommunicated. Yet, even if his doctrines can seem extravagant, contradictory, alien to modern values, and even anti-Semitic, his theology is relevant in our contemporary world because of the ever-growing threat of religious violence and fundamentalism. In his attempt to cleanse Christianity of its Jewish elements, Marcion set the bases for a critique of the cult to a violent God and the divine inspirations of violence. Marcion believed that the Old Testament God (Yahweh) was, in fact, the same as the creator or the material world, from which we must escape. He contrasted that God's violent deeds with the peaceful nature and character of the New Testament God.