Ambiguous Legitimation: Grassroots Roman Catholic Communities in Italy and Ecclesiastical Hierarchies

Hierarchies of ambiguous beliefs

We present a theory of interactive beliefs analogous to Mertens and Zamir [31] and Brandenburger and Dekel [10] that allows for hierarchies of ambiguity. Each agent is allowed a compact set of beliefs at each level, rather than just a single belief as in the standard model. We propose appropriate definitions of coherency and common knowledge for our types. Common knowledge of coherency closes t...

Roman Catholic Views of Personal and Social Health

The Roman Catholic Church and embryonic stem cells

embryonic stem cells Skene and Parker raise a number of concerns about religious doctrine unduly influencing law and public policy through amicus curiae contributions to civil litigations or direct lobbying of politicians. Oakley picks this up in the same issue with an emphasis on the Roman Catholic Church’s interest in preventing the destruction of embryos for embryonic stem cell research. Ske...

The Roman Catholic Church and embryonic stem cells.

embryonic stem cells Skene and Parker raise a number of concerns about religious doctrine unduly influencing law and public policy through amicus curiae contributions to civil litigations or direct lobbying of politicians. Oakley picks this up in the same issue with an emphasis on the Roman Catholic Church’s interest in preventing the destruction of embryos for embryonic stem cell research. Ske...

Democracy, embryonic stem cell research, and the Roman Catholic church.

The Roman Catholic Church in Australia has lobbied politicians to prohibit embryonic stem cell research, on the grounds that such research violates the sanctity and inherent dignity of human life. I suggest, however, that reasoned reflection does not uniquely support such conclusions about the morality of stem cell research. A recent parliamentary standing committee report recommended that embr...