Synthetic biology is a dynamic, young, ambitious, attractive, and heterogeneous scientific discipline. It is constantly developing and changing, which makes societal evaluation of this emerging new science a challenging task, prone to misunderstandings. Synthetic biology is difficult to capture, and confusion arises not only regarding which part of synthetic biology the discussion is about, but also with respect to the underlying concepts in use. This book offers a useful toolbox to approach this complex and fragmented field. It provides a biological access to the discussion using a 'layer' model that describes the connectivity of synthetic or semisynthetic organisms and cells to the realm of natural organisms derived by evolution.Instead of directly reviewing the field as a whole, firstly our book addresses the characteristic features of synthetic biology that are relevant to the societal discussion. Some of these features apply only to parts of synthetic biology, whereas others are relevant to synthetic biology as a whole. In the next step, these new features are evaluated with respect to the different areas of synthetic biology. Do we have the right words and categories to talk about these new features? In the third step, traditional concepts like "life" and "artificiality" are scrutinized with regard to their discriminatory power. This approach may help to differentiate the discussion on synthetic biology. Lastly our refined view is utilized for societal evaluation. We have investigated the public views and attitudes to synthetic biology. It also includes the analysis of ethical, risk and legal questions, posed by present and future practices of synthetic biology.This book contains the results of an interdisciplinary research project and presents the authors' main findings and recommendations. They are addressed to science, industry, politics and the general public interested in this upcoming field of biotechnology.

Knowing that we are finite, how can we live to the fullest? Philosopher George Santayana suggested 'spirituality' enables us to enjoy what we have. This book clarifies and extends Santayana's account of spirituality, while suggesting how the detachment of spirituality can relieve human suffering, enrich our lives, and make us better human beings.

A disciple of Kant and a significant factor in shaping Nietzsche's thinking, Arthur Schopenhauer worked from the foundation that all knowledge derives from our experience of the world but that our experience is necessarily subjective and formed by our own intellect and biases: reality, therefore, is but an extension of our own will. In this essay, translated by THOMAS BAILEY SAUNDERS (1860-1928) and first published in English in the 1890s, Schopenhauer offers his outlook on human nature... and a pessimistic one it is, for Schopenhauer saw life through a Buddhist-like lens of desire leading to suffering, and the abjuration of desire as the only path to temporary relief. Here, the philosopher examines human institutions such as government, human ideals such as free will, and human understanding of character and morality, and finds underlying them a fatalistic impulse driving culture from extremes of despotism to those of anarchy, with little stopping along the way. Students of philosophy and of 19th-century intellectualism will find this a fascinating read.

It is widely held in contemporary moral philosophy that moral agency must be explained in terms of some more basic account of human nature. This book presents a fundamental challenge to this view. Specifically, it argues that sympathy, understood as an immediate and unthinking response to another's suffering, plays a constitutive role in our conception of what it is to be human, and specifically in that conception of human life on which anything we might call a moral life depends.

Violence holds considerable philosophical interest, especially today, and yet this concept has not been given sufficient attention by contemporary philosophers. This is the first anthology of philosophical essays on the nature and justifiability of violence. The essays in this volume, taken from the last 100 years, explore a range of philosophical issues pertaining to violence. Three basic questions are scrutinized: 'What is violence?', 'Is violence always wrong?', and 'Can violence be justified?'. Students and Philosophers in political and moral philosophy, but also political theorists, political scientists, and political sociologists, will find this an important and valuable contribution.

This book reconceptualises the concept of moral economy in its relevance for, and application to, the criminal justice system in England and Wales. It advances the argument that criminal justice cannot be reduced to an instrumentally driven operation to achieve fiscal efficiencies or provide investment opportunities to the commercial sector.

Rebirth and the Stream of Life explores the diversity as well as the ethical and religious significance of rebirth beliefs, focusing especially on Hindu and Buddhist traditions but also discussing indigenous religions and ancient Greek thought. Utilizing resources from religious studies, anthropology and theology, an expanded conception of philosophy of religion is exemplified, which takes seriously lived experience rather than treating religious beliefs in isolation from their place in believers' lives. Drawing upon his expertise in interdisciplinary working and Wittgenstein-influenced approaches, Mikel Burley examines several interrelated phenomena, including purported past-life memories, the relationship between metaphysics and ethics, efforts to 'demythologize' rebirth, and moral critiques of the doctrine of karma. This range of topics, with rebirth as a unifying theme, makes the book of value to anyone interested in philosophy, the study of religions, and what it means to believe that we undergo multiple lives.

The idea of social injustice is pivotal to much contemporary moral and political philosophy. Starting from a comprehensive and engaging account of the idea of social injustice, this book covers a whole range of issues, including distributive justice, exploitation, torture, moral motivations, democratic theory, voting behaviour and market socialism.

This book examines the dependence of transhumanist arguments on the credibility of the narratives of meaning in which they are embedded. By taking the key ideas from transhumanist philosophy - the desirability of human self-design and immortality, the elimination of all suffering and the expansion of human autonomy - Michael Hauskeller explores these narratives and the understanding of human nature that informs them. Particular attention is paid to the theory of transhumanism as a form of utopia, stories of human nature, the increasing integration of the radical human enhancement project into the cultural mainstream, and the drive to upgrade from flesh to machine.

When this seminal collection of essays was first published in 1978, the philosophical 'problem' of obligations to fixture generations was not widely recognised. But as the contributors point out, the theories that have constituted the stock-in-trade of moral philosophers for the past two hundred years often produce weird and counter-intuitive results when they are extended to try to include those who are as yet unborn. Utilitarianism can appear to recommend practically unlimited population increase, with quantity of life taking precedence over quality; theories based on a social contract present difficulties involving reciprocity - we can affect the lives of future people while they apparently cannot affect ours; while the idea of rights seems difficult to apply to those whose future existence may depend on our present choice of action - do 'potential' people have a 'right' to be born? On its original publication, the journal Ethics devoted 30 pages to a review of Obligations to Future Generations, and the book is still frequently and extensively cited and discussed. The philosophical questions raised here centre around 'whether and to what degree it can be morally incumbent on us to make sacrifices to bring happy people into the world or to avoid preventing them being brought into the world'. The implications surrounding this central question are becoming ever more urgent in the light of increasing concerns over dwindling resources, population growth, globalisation and environmental risk. This collection is essential reading for students of ethics and social policy, and for anyone concerned with the relation between the present choices and future chances of humanity.

"To many, the term ""campaign ethics"" is an oxymoron. Questionable campaign conduct occurs at many levels, from national presidential elections to local delegate contests. Campaign ethics goes beyond mere ""ethical dilemmas,"" or trying to decide whether or not a particular act is above board. The chapters in this volume examine the broad questions of ethics in campaigns from the perspective of those actors that play critical roles in them, as well as the scholars who study them. The contributors-who include leading academics, as well as practitioners from the world of campaigning and campaign reform-outline, assess, and critique the role and responsibilities of candidates, citizens, organized interest groups, political parties, professional campaign consultants, and the media, in insuring ethical campaigns. Contributors include: Robert E. Denton (Virginia Tech University), David A. Dulio (Oakland University), Brad Rourke (Institute for Global Ethics), Robin Kolodny (Temple University), L. Dale Lawton (Institute for Global Ethics), L. Sandy Maisel (Colby College), Larry Makinson (Center for Responsive Politics), Stephen K. Medvic (Franklin & Marshall College), Dale E. Miller (Old Dominion University), Candice J. Nelson (Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, American University), Mark A. Siegel (Office of Congressman Steve Israel), Paul Taylor (Alliance For Better Campaigns), James A. Thurber (Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, American University), Michael W. Traugott (University of Michigan), Carol Whitney (Whitney and Associatesand Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, American University), and William H. Wood (Sorenson Institute for Political Leadership, University of Virginia). "

'Spencer regarded the Principles of Ethics - of which The "Data of Ethics and "Justice constitutes parts one and four respectively - as the culmination and crowning achievement of the System of Synthetic Philosophy, to which the other volumes on biology, psychology, and sociology had been mere preliminaries' - Michael Taylor, from the Introduction. In "Justice Spencer revisits the Law of Equal Freedom which first appeared in "Social Statics and forms the keystone of social morality.

This work contributes to the development of a theoretical context of the politics of truth about animals. By applying and extending Foucault's theory of power, this work uncovers dominant and subjugated discourses about animals and describes power-knowledge associated with statements about animals that are understood to convey true things.

Addressing the perennial question: why should we be moral? this book argues that we can only give a truly and morally satisfying answer to that question by radically reconfiguring our conception of the self and the way it relates to others.

The aim of this volume is to open up reflection on the nature of vulnerability, the responsibilities owed to the vulnerable, who bears these responsibilities, and how they are best fulfilled. In canvassing responses to these questions, the contributors engage with a range of ethical traditions and with issues in contemporary political philosophy and bioethics. Some essays in the volume explore the connections between vulnerability, autonomy, dignity, and justice. Other essays engage with a feminist ethics of care to articulate the relationship between vulnerability, dependence, and care. These theoretical approaches are complemented by detailed examination of vulnerability in specific contexts, including disability; responsibilities to children; intergenerational justice; and care of the elderly. The essays thus address fundamental questions concerning our moral duties to each other as individuals and as citizens. Contributing significantly to the development of an ethics of vulnerability, this volume opens up promising avenues for future research in feminist philosophy, moral and political philosophy, and bioethics.

An important contribution to the burgeoning field of the ethics of recognition, this book examines the contradictions inherent in the very concept of intimacy. Working with a wide variety of philosophical and literary sources, it warns against measuring our relationships against ideal standards, since there is no consummate form of intimacy. After analyzing ten major ways that we aim to establish intimacy with one another, including gift-giving, touching, and fetishes, the book concludes that each fails on its own terms, since intimacy wants something that is impossible. The very concept of intimacy is a superlative one; it aims not just for closeness, but for a closeness beyond closeness. Nevertheless, far from a pessimistic diagnosis of the human condition, this is a meditation on how to live intimately in a world in which intimacy is impossible. Rather than contenting itself with a deconstructive approach, it proposes to treat intimacy dialectically. For all its contradictions, it shows intimacy is central to how we understand ourselves and our relations to others.

The book questions the concept of "the enemy," beginning with Carl Schmitt's famous notion that politics is the relationship of friend and enemy and that humanity is not a political concept. This book deconstructs this notion and views humanity at the center of a type of politics based on ethics.

Discussion of John Stuart Mill's ethics has been dominated by concern with right and wrong action as determined by the principle of utility. Colin Heydt's book unearths the rich context of moral and socio-political debate that Mill did not have to make explicit to his Victorian readers, in order to enrich the philosophical analysis of his ethics and to show a famous and misunderstood moralist in a new light.

This book looks at how sexuality is framed in enhancement scenarios and how descriptions of the resulting posthuman future are informed by mythological, historical and literary paradigms. It examines the glorious sex life we will allegedly enjoy due to greater control of our emotions, improved capacity for pleasure, and availability of sex robots.

It is widely acknowledged that all archaeological research is embedded within cultural, political and economic contexts, and that all archaeological research falls under the heading 'heritage'. Most archaeologists now work in museums and other cultural institutions, government agencies, non-government organisations and private sector companies, and this diversity ensures that debates continue to proliferate about what constitutes appropriate professional ethics within these related and relevant contexts. Discussions about the ethics of cultural heritage in the 20th century focused on standards of professionalism, stewardship, responsibilities to stakeholders and on establishing public trust in the authenticity of the outcomes of the heritage process. This volume builds on recent approaches that move away from treating ethics as responsibilities to external domains and to the discipline, and which seek to ensure ethics are integral to all heritage theory, practice and methods. The chapters in this collection chart a departure from the tradition of external heritage ethics towards a broader approach underpinned by the turn to human rights, issues of social justice and the political economy of heritage, conceptualising ethical responsibilities not as pertaining to the past, but to a future-focused domain of social action.

A growing body of academic and business specialists are paying attention to ethical issues in business and economics, drawing on a wide range of different disciplinary and theoretical perspectives. This volume presents important new insights from scholars in economics, philosophy, business ethics and management studies. In addition to providing specific perspectives on particular topics, it presents strategic perspectives on the development of the field. Readers can inform themselves on developments in particular areas, such as social accountability or stakeholder governance; they will also find substantial contributions related to the interfaces of ethics and economics, economics and philosophy, business ethics and political science, and business ethics and management. The collection is a thought-provoking contribution to the development of business and economic ethics as an increasingly important field of academic study.

Throughout history, humans have raised and confined animals for food, clothing and research, trained animals for entertainment, fought animals for sport, bought and sold animals for profit, and lived with animals for companionship. The law under the umbrella of 'animal law' regulates these human uses and interactions with animals. Animal law is extremely diverse, cutting across every substantive area, jurisdictional boundary, and source of legal authority. Although most countries have enacted Animal Welfare Acts and Endangered Species Laws, the law is currently designed primarily to protect the interests of humans as owners of animals, or as users of environmental resources. The animals' inherent interests, if considered, are secondary. This text surveys the laws allegedly designed to protect animals, identifies the themes that link them, analyzes and critiques them in light of their consideration and protection of animals' interests, and explores characteristics of a future legal system that would adequately protect animals' inherent interests.

The volume aims to capture a European gist of theoretical sensibilities, conceptual resources, and research interests, but not in an adversarial way, as opposed to American bioethics. The volume gathers contributions from European scholars as they collaborate and form a research network, drawing on a diversity of philosophical traditions and local knowledge, with the aim of debating universal bioethical problems. ABSTRACTING & INDEXING Contemporary Debates in Bioethics: European Perspectives is covered by the following services: Baidu Scholar DOAB (Directory of Open Access Books) EBSCO Discovery Service Google Scholar J-Gate Naviga (Softweco) Primo Central (ExLibris) ReadCube Semantic Scholar Summon (ProQuest) TDOne (TDNet) WorldCat (OCLC)