Recovering the forgotten discipline of Natural Philosophy for the modern world This book argues for the retrieval of 'natural philosophy', a concept that faded into comparative obscurity as individual scientific disciplines became established and institutionalized. Natural philosophy was understood in the early modern period as a way of exploring the human relationship with the natural world, encompassing what would now be seen as the distinct disciplines of the natural sciences, mathematics, music, philosophy, and theology. The first part of the work represents a critical conversation with the tradition, identifying the essential characteristics of natural philosophy, particularly its emphasis on both learning about and learning from nature. After noting the factors which led to the disintegration of natural philosophy during the nineteenth century, the second part of the work sets out the reasons why natural philosophy should be retrieved, and a creative and innovative proposal for how this might be done. This draws on Karl Popper's 'Three Worlds' and Mary Midgley's notion of using multiple maps in bringing together the many aspects of the human encounter with the natural world. Such a retrieved or 're-imagined' natural philosophy is able to encourage both human attentiveness and respectfulness towards Nature, while enfolding both the desire to understand the natural world, and the need to preserve the affective, imaginative, and aesthetic aspects of the human response to nature.

Offering a compendium of case studies in bioethics, Choosing Well demonstrates real ethical dilemmas that can occur in health care settings. Instructors can draw upon the scenarios in this concise and highly effective resource to encourage analysis, critique, discussion, and debate of hot-button ethical issues.The authors present a diverse selection of complex case studies in bioethics to stimulate in-depth analysis on topics ranging from distributive justice, research ethics, reproductive technologies, abortion, and death and dying, to the health care professional-patient relationship and ethics in the workplace. The text also features case studies that move through time to reflect real-life decision making and cases that present multiple perspectives to illustrate the challenges that can arise from disputes in health care settings. Utilizing the DECIDED strategy for analyzing case studies, instructors can guide students through the steps needed to work through a wide variety of ethical dilemmas and encourage reflection on their own ethical assumptions. Accessible, practical, and highly engaging, Choosing Well offers a helpful and interesting way to explore central issues in contemporary bioethics, making it an indispensable resource for instructors and students of bioethics, biomedical ethics, and health care ethics.

If our bodies could do more things, would our lives be better? Genome editing is a rapidly developing technology that can modify human genes. It can cure heritable diseases, but we could even make certain genetic "improvements" to healthy people. Should we change human embryos genetically to achieve such goals? Bringing together a leading molecular biologist and a Christian ethicist this book responds to the need for solid information and helpful orientation for a pressing moral issue. They explain relevant technical issues without the jargon, clarify the most important philosophical and religious arguments and bring empirical insights to the question of what helps us lead meaningful lives.

We all assume we know what life is, but the more scientists learn about the living world - from protocells to brains, from zygotes to pandemic viruses - the harder they find it to define exactly what it is and what it isn't. What is life? In this riveting and thought-provoking book, Carl Zimmer explores the question by journeying to the edges of life in every direction, from viruses to computer intelligence, from its origins on earth to the search for extra-terrestrial life and the strange experiments that have attempted to recreate life from scratch in the lab. The question is not only a scientific issue; it hangs over some of society's most charged conflicts - whether a fertilized egg is a living person, for example, and when we ought to declare a person legally dead. Whether he is handling pythons or searching for hibernating bats, Zimmer investigates life in its most unfamiliar forms. He tries his own hand at evolving life in a test tube with unnerving results, explores our cultural obsession with Dr. Frankestein's monster and how Coleridge came to believe the whole universe was alive. The result is an entirely gripping exploration of one of the most crucial questions of all: the meaning of life.

What will it mean for society if science enables us to choose a future child whose health, athletic ability or intelligence is predetermined? This future is becoming ever more likely with the latest developments in human reproduction -- but concerns are growing about the implications. New procedures making possible heritable genetic modifications such as genome editing open the door to 'sanitized' selective eugenics; but these practices have some unnerving similarities to the discredited eugenic programmes of early twentieth-century regimes. A Christian perspective based on Scripture gives us the resources we urgently need to evaluate both current and future selection practices. Calum MacKellar offers an accessible, inter-disciplinary analysis, blending science, history and Christian theology. This book will enable you to become fully informed about the new scientific developments in human reproduction - developments that will affect us all.

This volume examines the latest scientific and technological developments likely to shape our post-human future. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the author argues that we stand at the precipice of an evolutionary change caused by genetic engineering and anatomically embedded digital and informational technologies. The author delves into current scientific initiatives that will lead to the emergence of super smart individuals with unique creative capacities. He draws on technology, psychology and philosophy to consider humans-as-they-are relative to autonomy, creativity, and their place in a future shared with 'post humans.' The author discusses the current state of bioethics and technology law, both which policymakers, beset by a torrent of revolutionary advances in bioengineering, are attempting to steer. Significantly, Carvalko addresses why we must both preserve the narratives that brought us to this moment and continue to express our humanity through, music, art, and literature, to ensure that, as a uniquely creative species, we don't simply vanish in the ether of an evolution brought about by our own technology.

Find clarity on everyday green-living dilemmas to maximise your sustainability Are paper bags always more environmentally friendly than plastic? How much better for the planet are electric cars? What saves more water - using the dishwasher or washing up by hand? We all want to do the right thing for the planet, but with so many factors at play it can be difficult to work out which is the greenest way. With answers to the everyday green-living questions, Is it really green? cuts through the confusion and gives you the facts. Inside the pages of this book about eco-friendly living, you'll discover: - Answers to more than 140 everyday green-living questions - Advice on making all aspects of your home green like your kitchen, bathroom and wardrobe - How to shop sustainably - The big issues surrounding the climate crisis and what you can do about it - Practical advice on living green everyday including transport and travel as well as managing family and relationships Get to the heart of each eco-conundrum, interrogate your instincts, and make informed decisions to reduce your ecological footprint. Combat Everyday Eco-Dilemmas This book sheds light on the consequences of our everyday decisions and helps you feel empowered to do what you can to make a positive impact on the future of our planet. Whether it's choosing a vegan lifestyle, taking steps towards zero-waste living, or cutting down on travel, every small adjustment to the way we live counts. The book itself has also been made as sustainably as possible, using recycled paper and locally based printers to reduce air miles. It is the perfect gift for the environmentally conscious.

Neil Messer brings together a range of theoretical and practical questions raised by current research on the human brain: questions about both the 'ethics of neuroscience' and the 'neuroscience of ethics'. While some of these are familiar to theologians, others have been more or less ignored hitherto, and the field of neuroethics as a whole has received little theological attention. Drawing on both theological ethics and the science-and-theology field, Messer discusses cognitive-scientific and neuroscientific studies of religion, arguing that they do not give grounds to dismiss theological perspectives on the human self. He examines a representative range of topics across the whole field of neuroethics, including consciousness, the self and the value of human life; the neuroscience of morality; determinism, freewill and moral responsibility; and the ethics of cognitive enhancement.

For decades, the field of bioethics has shaped the way we think about ethical problems in science, technology, and medicine. But its traditional emphasis on individual interests such as doctor-patient relationships, informed consent, and personal autonomy is minimally helpful in confronting the social and political challenges posed by new human biotechnologies such as assisted reproduction, human genetic modification, and DNA forensics. Beyond Bioethics addresses these provocative issues from an emerging standpoint that is attentive to race, gender, class, disability, privacy, and notions of democracy-a "new biopolitics." This authoritative volume provides an overview for those grappling with the profound dilemmas posed by these developments. It brings together the work of cutting-edge thinkers from diverse fields of study and public engagement, all of them committed to this new perspective grounded in social justice and public interest values.

This comprehensive book covers the research, theory, policy and practice context of unusual reproduction using third parties. Olga Van den Akker details the psychological adaptation required to continuing changes in public opinion, advances in technologies and new legislations in surrogate motherhood and discusses their impact at an individual, societal and global level. She describes the competing interests and interactions between legal, organisational, personal, social, psychological and cultural issues in relation to biological and genetic surrogate and commissioning parenthood. This book is intended for professionals, practitioners, academics and students interested in the complexities of unusual reproduction using multidisciplinary perspectives.

Pressing ethical issues are at the foreground of newfound knowledge of how the brain works, how the brain fails, and how information about its functions and failures are addressed, recorded and shared. In Neuroethics: Anticipating the Future, a distinguished group of contributors tackle current critical questions and anticipate the issues on the horizon. What new balances should be struck between diagnosis and prediction, or invasive and non-invasive interventions, given the rapid advances in neuroscience? Are new criteria needed for the clinical definition of death for those eligible for organ donation? What educational, social and medical opportunities will new neuroscience discoveries bring to the children of tomorrow? As data from emerging technologies are made available on public databases, what frameworks will maximize benefits while ensuring privacy of health information? How is the environment shaping humans, and humans shaping the environment? These challenging questions and other future-looking neuroethical concerns are discussed in depth. Written by eminent scholars from diverse disciplines - neurology and neuroscience, ethics, law, public health, and philosophy - this new volume on neuroethics sets out the conditions for active consideration. It is essential reading for the fields of neuroethics, neurosciences and psychology, and an invaluable resource for physicians in neurology and neurosurgery, psychiatry, paediatrics, and rehabilitation medicine, academics in humanities and law, and health policy makers.

Sport is often thought of as simply "games," but it can in fact be much more. Sport can be responsible for guiding social justice movements, igniting city-wide riots, uniting countries, permanently injuring youth, revolutionizing views about race, gender and class, and producing several of the most successful global industries. Reports of ethical crises in athletics are constant fodder for popular attention, whether performance enhancing drugs in baseball, corruption in college athletics, the epidemic of brain damage among NFL players, and others too numerous to mention. As a proxy for social concerns, we naturally think of sport in inherently moral terms. Yet we can hardly define the term "sport," or agree on acceptable levels of sporting risk, or determine clear roles and responsibilities for fans, players, coaches, owners, media and health care personnel. Bringing together 27 of the most essential recent articles from philosophy, history, sociology, medicine, and law, this collection explores intersections of sports and ethics and brings attention to the immense role of sports in shaping and reflecting social values.

This book is a set of recommendations from the Bioethics Commission in response to a request from President Obama to review the ethical issues associated with the conduct and implications of neuroscience research; and President Obama's request related to the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. Specifically the President asked the Bioethics Commission to "identify proactively a set of core ethical standards both to guide neuroscience research and to address some of the ethical dilemmas that may be raised by the application of neuroscience research findings." This book focuses on the integration of ethics into neuroscience research across the life of a research endeavor; and on the analysis on three particularly controversial topics that illustrate the ethical tensions and societal implications of advancing neuroscience and technology: cognitive enhancement, consent capacity, and neuroscience and the legal system. The book seeks to clarify the scientific landscape, identify common ground, and recommend ethical paths forward.

This book examines all aspects of narrative medicine and its value in ensuring that, in an age of evidence-based medicine defined by clinical trials, numbers, and probabilities, clinical science is firmly embedded in the medical humanities in order to foster the understanding of clinical cases and the delivery of excellent patient care. The medical humanities address what happens to us when we are affected by a disease and narrative medicine is an interdisciplinary approach that emphasizes the importance of patient narratives in bridging various divides, including those between health care professionals and patients. The book covers the genesis of the medical humanities and of narrative medicine and explores all aspects of their role in improving healthcare. It describes how narrative medicine is therapeutic for the patient, enhances the patient-doctor relationship, and allows the identification, via patients' stories, of the feelings and experiences that are characteristic for each disease. Furthermore, it explains how to use narrative medicine as a real scientific tool. Narrative Medicine will be of value for all caregivers: physicians, nurses, healthcare managers, psychotherapists, counselors, and social workers. "Maria Giulia Marini takes a unique and innovative approach to narrative medicine. She sees it as offering a bridge - indeed a variety of different bridges - between clinical care and 'humanitas'. With a sensitive use of mythology, literature and metaphor on the one hand, and scientific studies on the other, she shows how the guiding concept of narrative might bring together the fragmented parts of the medical enterprise". John Launer, Honorary Consultant, Tavistock Clinic, London UK

Research on human beings saves countless lives, but has at times harmed the participants. To what degree then should government regulate science, and how? The horrors of Nazi concentration camp experiments and the egregious Tuskegee syphilis study led the US government, in 1974, to establish Research Ethics Committees, known as Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to oversee research on humans. The US now has over 4,000 IRBs, which examine yearly tens of billions of dollars of research - all studies on people involving diseases, from cancer to autism, and behavior. Yet ethical violations persist. At the same time, critics have increasingly attacked these committees for delaying or blocking important studies. Partly, science is changing, and the current system has not kept up. Since the regulations were first conceived 40 years ago, research has burgeoned 30-fold. Studies often now include not a single university, but multiple institutions, and 40 separate IRBs thus need to approve a single project. One committee might approve a study quickly, while others require major changes, altering the scientific design, and making the comparison of data between sites difficult. Crucial dilemmas thus emerge of whether the current system should be changed, and if so, how. Yet we must first understand the status quo to know how to improve it. Unfortunately, these committees operate behind closed doors, and have received relatively little in-depth investigation. Robert Klitzman thus interviewed 45 IRB leaders and members about how they make decisions. What he heard consistently surprised him. This book reveals what Klitzman learned, providing rare glimpses into the conflicts and complexities these individuals face, defining science, assessing possible future risks and benefits of studies, and deciding how much to trust researchers - illuminating, more broadly, how we view and interpret ethics in our lives today, and perceive and use power. These committees reflect many of the most vital tensions of our time - concerning science and human values, individual freedom, government control, and industry greed. Ultimately, as patients, scientists, or subjects, the decisions of these men and women affect us all.

A pithy work of philosophical anthropology that explores why humans find moral orders in natural orders. Why have human beings, in many different cultures and epochs, looked to nature as a source of norms for human behavior? From ancient India and ancient Greece, medieval France and Enlightenment America, up to the latest controversies over gay marriage and cloning, natural orders have been enlisted to illustrate and buttress moral orders. Revolutionaries and reactionaries alike have appealed to nature to shore up their causes. No amount of philosophical argument or political critique deters the persistent and pervasive temptation to conflate the "is" of natural orders with the "ought" of moral orders. In this short, pithy work of philosophical anthropology, Lorraine Daston asks why we continually seek moral orders in natural orders, despite so much good counsel to the contrary. She outlines three specific forms of natural order in the Western philosophical tradition-specific natures, local natures, and universal natural laws-and describes how each of these three natural orders has been used to define and oppose a distinctive form of the unnatural. She argues that each of these forms of the unnatural triggers equally distinctive emotions: horror, terror, and wonder. Daston proposes that human reason practiced in human bodies should command the attention of philosophers, who have traditionally yearned for a transcendent reason, valid for all species, all epochs, even all planets.

Focusing on the period between the 1970s and the present, Life as Surplus is a pointed and important study of the relationship between politics, economics, science, and cultural values in the United States today. Melinda Cooper demonstrates that the history of biotechnology cannot be understood without taking into account the simultaneous rise of neoliberalism as a political force and an economic policy. From the development of recombinant DNA technology in the 1970s to the second Bush administration's policies on stem cell research, Cooper connects the utopian polemic of free-market capitalism with growing internal contradictions of the commercialized life sciences. The biotech revolution relocated economic production at the genetic, microbial, and cellular level. Taking as her point of departure the assumption that life has been drawn into the circuits of value creation, Cooper underscores the relations between scientific, economic, political, and social practices. In penetrating analyses of Reagan-era science policy, the militarization of the life sciences, HIV politics, pharmaceutical imperialism, tissue engineering, stem cell science, and the pro-life movement, the author examines the speculative impulses that have animated the growth of the bioeconomy. At the very core of the new post-industrial economy is the transformation of biological life into surplus value. Life as Surplus offers a clear assessment of both the transformative, therapeutic dimensions of the contemporary life sciences and the violence, obligation, and debt servitude crystallizing around the emerging bioeconomy.

An argument against the "lifeboat ethic" of contemporary bioethics that views medicine as a commodity rather than a tradition of care and caring. Bioethics emerged in the 1960s from a conviction that physicians and researchers needed the guidance of philosophers in handling the issues raised by technological advances in medicine. It blossomed as a response to the perceived doctor-knows-best paternalism of the traditional medical ethic and today plays a critical role in health policies and treatment decisions. Bioethics claimed to offer a set of generally applicable, universally accepted guidelines that would simplify complex situations. In Thieves of Virtue, Tom Koch contends that bioethics has failed to deliver on its promises. Instead, he argues, bioethics has promoted a view of medicine as a commodity whose delivery is predicated not on care but on economic efficiency. At the heart of bioethics, Koch writes, is a "lifeboat ethic" that assumes "scarcity" of medical resources is a natural condition rather than the result of prior economic, political, and social choices. The idea of natural scarcity requiring ethical triage signaled a shift in ethical emphasis from patient care and the physician's responsibility for it to neoliberal accountancies and the promotion of research as the preeminent good. The solution to the failure of bioethics is not a new set of simplistic principles. Koch points the way to a transformed medical ethics that is humanist, responsible, and defensible.

A cognitive science perspective on scientific development, drawing on philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and computational modeling. Many disciplines, including philosophy, history, and sociology, have attempted to make sense of how science works. In this book, Paul Thagard examines scientific development from the interdisciplinary perspective of cognitive science. Cognitive science combines insights from researchers in many fields: philosophers analyze historical cases, psychologists carry out behavioral experiments, neuroscientists perform brain scans, and computer modelers write programs that simulate thought processes. Thagard develops cognitive perspectives on the nature of explanation, mental models, theory choice, and resistance to scientific change, considering disbelief in climate change as a case study. He presents a series of studies that describe the psychological and neural processes that have led to breakthroughs in science, medicine, and technology. He shows how discoveries of new theories and explanations lead to conceptual change, with examples from biology, psychology, and medicine. Finally, he shows how the cognitive science of science can integrate descriptive and normative concerns; and he considers the neural underpinnings of certain scientific concepts.

About the Contributor(s): R. Dennis Macaleer has a unique combination of education and experience. He holds an undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering from Princeton University, master's degrees from Fuller Seminary and Princeton Seminary, a Doctor of Ministry degree in marriage and family, and a PhD in bioethics. He has pastored several churches spanning two continents over a thirty-five year period and currently pastors a church in suburban Pittsburgh.

This book gives a theologically satisfying discussion of health and disease that addresses key areas neglected by medical ethicists. We use such words as "health," "disease," and "illness" all the time without stopping to consider exactly what we understand by them. Yet their meanings are far from straightforward, and disagreements over them have important practical consequences in health care and bioethics. In this book, Neil Messer develops a distinctive and innovative theological account of these concepts. He engages in earnest with debates in the philosophy of medicine and disability studies and draws on a wide array of theological resources including Barth, Bonhoeffer, Aquinas, and recent disability theologies. By enabling us to understand health in the wider perspective of the flourishing and ultimate destiny of human beings, Messer's Flourishing sheds new light on a range of practical bioethical issues and dilemmas.

Since the early 2000s, the field of Responsible Conduct of Research has become widely recognized as essential to scientific education, investigation, and training. At present, research institutions with public funding are expected to have some minimal training and education in RCR for their graduate students, fellows and trainees. These institutions also are expected to have a system in place for investigating and reporting misconduct in research or violations of regulations in research with human subjects, or in their applications to federal agencies for funding. Public scrutiny of the conduct of scientific researchers remains high. Media reports of misconduct scandals, biased research, violations of human research ethics rules, and moral controversies in research occur on a weekly basis. Since the 2009 publication of the 2nd edition of Shamoo and Resnik's Responsible Conduct of Research, there has been a vast expansion in the information, knowledge, methods, and diagnosis of problems related to RCR and the multitude of ethical issues of human subject protections. With the climate surrounding research conduct always shifting, developments in the field make an updated edition a necessity. All chapters have been revised and reflect the most current RCR landscape. New or further-developed topics include social responsibility and misconduct in social sciences, climate-change research, authorship, and peer review. Updates include new information on research involving human subjects or "vulnerable" biological subjects, as well as genetic research. Just like in previous editions, all chapters contain recent case studies and legal examples of various subjects.