Illuminating Nineteenth-Century English Urban Midwifery: the register of a Coventry midwife

The three-volume register of a sworn midwife provides unique insights into midwifery practice in an English city in the second half of the nineteenth century. The register is a rare primary source, and contains 5029 entries, from July 1847 to October 1875. Considered alongside the limited sources discovered to date, this analysis casts light on our understandings of non-elite midwifery, and the wider context of women's work in the nineteenth century. The midwife's patterns of work, her relationships with clients and lying-in charities, and the impact of local economic circumstances on her practice are discussed. Despite her extensive practice, the official record of her occupation is meagre.     

Die Ausgaben der Schweizer Kantone ‐ Eine Fuzzy Set QCA

The paper investigates the factors influencing the 26 Swiss Cantons' government expenditures. While the question has been subject to various statistical analyses, the present study has an alternative focus by adopting a configurative perspective. We take the findings of the 2002‐study by Vatter and Freitag, as our point of departure and re‐analyse their significant variables with regard to their combined impact using updated data from 2000 to 2006 and employing Fuzzy Set QCA. The results underline the important effect of monetary transfers from the federation thus corroborating the Flypaper Effect thesis from Economic Theory.     

A just soldier's dilemma: facing a war that does not meet jus ad bellum criteria

In our challenging times individuals in military services may find themselves in the position of being called to contribute to a war whose overall justice they personally find morally suspect, or about which they have moral qualms. The right course of action in this situation can be a serious dilemma. Applying the principle of double effect to this dilemma recognizes essential state responsibility for war, but does not discount the soldier's personal moral responsibilities or individual will. This novel application of the principle of double effect treats damage produced by participating in a questionable war as a side-effect of pursuing other—clearly justifiable—intentions. The just war tradition already uses the principle of double effect when weighing the permissibility of individuals' acts in war, such as choosing bombing targets. The proposal here is to evaluate the decision to contribute to the war effort at all. This adaptation of the classic just war principle of double effect can be used to justify some—but not all—individual participation when a war's state-level justification is suspect.