A hugely topical collection of essays from a cross-disciplinary group of leading academics focussing on the implications for an understanding of human identity in light of the current possibilities in medical science. The book brings together an international body of medical experts alongside philosophers, sociologists, theologians and ethicists in order to discuss these vital issues.

The ensuing discussion will allow public debate to be more informed about the actual possibilities inherent in medical science, alongside a sophisticated treatment of ethical and theological issues. The result is a focused collection of essays that raises new and challenging questions.

In Oktober 2015 het die Algemene Sinode van die NG Kerk ’n merkwaardige besluit oor selfdegeslagverhoudings geneem. Die besluit het erkenning gegee aan sulke verhoudings en dit vir predikante moontlik gemaak om gay en lesbiese persone in die eg te verbind. Ook die selibaatsvereiste wat tot op daardie stadium vir gay predikante gegeld het, is opgehef. Met hierdie besluit het die NG Kerk die eerste hoofstroomkerk in Suid-Afrika en Afrika geword wat totale gelykwaardige menswaardige behandeling van alle mense, ongeag seksuele oriëntasie, erken – en is gedoen wat slegs in ’n handjievol kerke wêreldwyd uitgevoer is. Die besluit het egter gelei tot groot konsternasie. Verskeie appèlle en beswaargeskrifte is ingedien, distriksinodes het hulle van die besluit distansieer, en in die media was daar volgehoue kritiek en debat.

In our increasingly secular world, holy texts are at best seen as irrelevant, and at worst as an excuse to incite violence, hatred and division. So what value, if any, can scripture hold for us today? And if our world no longer seems compatible with scripture, is it perhaps because its original purpose has become lost? Today we see the Quran being used by some to justify war and terrorism, the Torah to deny Palestinians the right to live in the Land of Israel, and the Bible to condemn homosexuality and contraception. The holy texts at the centre of all religious traditions are often employed selectively to underwrite arbitrary and subjective views. They are believed to be divinely ordained; they are claimed to contain eternal truths. But as Karen Armstrong, a world authority on religious affairs, shows in this fascinating journey through millennia of history, this narrow reading of scripture is a relatively recent phenomenon. For hundreds of years these texts were instead viewed as spiritual tools: scripture was a means for the individual to connect with the divine, to transcend their physical existence, and to experience a higher level of consciousness. Holy texts were seen as fluid and adaptable, rather than a set of binding archaic rules or a `truth' that has to be `believed'. Armstrong argues that only by rediscovering an open engagement with their holy texts will the world's religions be able to curtail arrogance, intolerance and violence. And if scripture is used to engage with the world in more meaningful and compassionate ways, we will find that it still has a great deal to teach us.

Demystifying the key ideas of the world's greatest philosophers, and exploring all of the most important branches of thought including philosophy of science, philosophy of religion and feminist philosophy in a uniquely visual way, this book is the perfect introduction to the history of philosophy. A clear and accessible guide to philosophy, How Philosophy Works combines bold infographics and jargon-free text to demystify fundamental concepts. Covering everything from ethics to epistemology and phenomenology, the book presents the ideas and theories of key philosophical traditions and philosophers - from Plato and Socrates to Nietzsche and Wittgenstein via Kant - in a novel, easy-to-understand way. Its infographics will help you to understand the elements of philosophy on a conceptual level and, by tackling life's "big questions", it will help you to look at the world in an entirely new way. With its unique graphic approach and clear, authoritative text, How Philosophy Works is the perfect introduction to philosophy, and the ideal companion to DK's The Philosophy Book in the "Big Ideas" series.

The story of the greatest of all philosophical friendships "and how it influenced modern thought David Hume is arguably the most important philosopher ever to have written in English, but during his lifetime he was attacked as oethe Great Infidel for his religious skepticism and deemed unfit to teach the young. In contrast, Adam Smith, now hailed as the founding father of capitalism, was a revered professor of moral philosophy. Remarkably, Hume and Smith were best friends, sharing what Dennis Rasmussen calls the greatest of all philosophical friendships. The Infidel and the Professor tells the fascinating story of the close relationship between these towering Enlightenment thinkers "and how it influenced their world-changing ideas. It shows that Hume contributed more to economics "and Smith contributed more to philosophy "than is generally recognized. The result is a compelling account of a great friendship that had great consequences for modern thought.

In this book, renowned anthropologists Jean and John L. Comaroff make a startling but absolutely convincing claim about our modern era: it is not by our arts, our politics, or our science that we understand ourselves-it is by our crimes. Surveying an astonishing range of forms of crime and policing-from petty thefts to the multibilliondollar scams of toobigtofail financial institutions to the collateral damage of war-they take readers into the disorder of the late modern world. Looking at recent transformations in the triangulation of capital, the state, and governance that have led to an era where crime and policing are ever more complicit, they offer a powerful meditation on the new forms of sovereignty, citizenship, class, race, law, and political economy of representation that have arisen. To do so, the Comaroffs draw on their vast knowledge of South Africa, especially, and its struggle to build a democracy founded on the rule of law out of the wreckage of long years of violence and oppression. There they explore everything from the fascination with the supernatural in policing to the extreme measures people take to prevent home invasion, drawing illuminating comparisons to the United States and United Kingdom. Going beyond South Africa, they offer a global criminal anthropology that attests to criminality as the constitutive fact of contemporary life, the vernacular by which politics are conducted, moral panics voiced, and populations ruled. The result is a disturbing but necessary portrait of the modern era, one that asks critical new questions about how we see ourselves, how we think about morality, and how we are going to proceed as a global society.

How the new conspiracists are undermining democracy "and what can be done about it Conspiracy theories are as old as politics. But conspiracists today have introduced something new "conspiracy without theory. And the new conspiracism has moved from the fringes to the heart of government with the election of Donald Trump. In A Lot of People Are Saying, Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum show how the new conspiracism differs from classic conspiracy theory, why so few officials speak truth to conspiracy, and what needs to be done to resist it. Classic conspiracy theory insists that things are not what they seem and gathers evidence "especially facts ominously withheld by official sources "to tease out secret machinations. The new conspiracism is different. There is no demand for evidence, no dots revealed to form a pattern, no close examination of shadowy plotters. Dispensing with the burden of explanation, the new conspiracism imposes its own reality through repetition (exemplified by the Trump catchphrase oea lot of people are saying ) and bare assertion ( oerigged! ). The new conspiracism targets democratic foundations "political parties and knowledge-producing institutions. It makes it more difficult to argue, persuade, negotiate, compromise, and even to disagree. Ultimately, it delegitimates democracy. Filled with vivid examples, A Lot of People Are Saying diagnoses a defining and disorienting feature of today (TM)s politics and offers a guide to responding to the threat.

Written by Gregory A. Barker and Richard Gray, this innovative new Revision Guide provides students with an effective way to recall and revise the comprehensive content of their Religious Studies A Level Year 1 and AS course. / Successful revision through an innovative and proven `Trigger' approach. / Students will develop the skills required to manage the essential information from the course, and transfer everything they have learned into the exam. / Revision activities help students unpack their knowledge and prepare for the exam. / Sample answers for AO1 and AO2 exam-style questions, with expert insight and advice on creating an effective answer. / Synoptic Links show how other areas of the specification can enhance or support answers

Target success in WJEC and WJEC Eduqas A-level Religious Studies with this proven formula for effective, structured revision; key content coverage is combined with exam-style tasks and practical tips to create a revision guide that you can rely on to review, strengthen and test students' knowledge. With My Revision Notes every student can: - Plan and manage a successful revision programme using the topic-by-topic planner - Consolidate subject knowledge by working through clear and focused content coverage - Test understanding and identify areas for improvement with regular 'Now Test Yourself' tasks and answers - Improve exam technique through practice questions, expert advice and examples of typical mistakes to avoid

Criticism and Compassion: The Ethics and Politics of Claudia Card offers a unique perspective on the range of issues explored by Card during her distinguished career in philosophy. Investigates her work as an early leader in the development of feminist philosophy, challenging many preconceptions about the society's norms regarding gender, marriage, and motherhood Crossing many disciplinary boundaries, her concept of social death has come to play a significant role in multidisciplinary field of genocide studies This volume combines many of Claudia Card's important essays with recently commissioned essays by leading philosophers whose work has been influenced by Card The full scope of Card's philosophy is presented here - both in her own words and those of her critics and interpreters

Suicide is everywhere. It haunts history and current events. It haunts our own networks of friends and family. The spectre of suicide looms large, but the topic is taboo because any meaningful discussion must at the very least consider that the answer to the question - 'is life worth living?' - might not be an emphatic yes; it might even be a stern no. Through a sweeping historical overview of suicide, a moving literary survey of famous suicide notes, and a psychological analysis of himself, Simon Critchley offers us an insight into what it means to possess the all too human gift and curse of being of being able to choose life or death.

Justice, mercy, and the public good all find meaning in relationshipaa relationship dependent upon fidelity, but endlessly open to the betrayals of infidelity. This paradox defines the story of God and Israel in the Old Testament. Yet the arc of this story reaches ever forward, and its trajectory confers meaning upon human relationships and communities in the present. The Old Testament still speaks. Israel, in the Old Testament, bears witness to a God who initiates and then sustains covenantal relationships. God, in mercy, does so by making promises for a just well-being and prescribing stipulations for the covenant partner's obedience. The nature of the relationship itself decisively depends upon the conduct, practice, and policy of the covenant partner, yet is radically rooted in the character and agency of Godathe One who makes promises, initiates covenant, and sustains relationship. This reflexive, asymmetrical relationship, kept alive in the texts and tradition, now fires contemporary imagination. Justice becomes shaped by the practice of neighborliness, mercy reaches beyond a pervasive quid pro quo calculus, and law becomes a dynamic norming of the community. The well-being of the neighborhood, inspired by the biblical texts, makes possibleaand even insists uponaan alternative to the ideology of individualism that governs our society's practice and policy. This kind of community life returns us to the arc of God's giftsamercy, justice, and law. The covenant of God in the witness of biblical faith speaks now and demands that its interpreting community resist individualism, overcome commoditization, and thwart the rule of empire through a life of radical neighbor love.

From one of our preeminent philosophers-winner of the Berggruen Prize-a work that engages critically with important examples of the cosmopolitan ideal from ancient Greece and Rome to the present. The cosmopolitan political tradition in Western thought begins with the Greek Cynic Diogenes, who, when asked where he came from, responded that he was a citizen of the world. Rather than declaring his lineage, city, social class, or gender, he defined himself as a human being, implicitly asserting the equal worth of all human beings. Nussbaum pursues this "noble but flawed" vision of world citizenship as it finds expression in figures of Greco-Roman antiquity, Hugo Grotius in the seventeenth century, Adam Smith during the eighteenth century, and various contemporary thinkers. She confronts its inherent tensions: the ideal suggests that moral personality is complete, and completely beautiful, without any external aids, while reality insists that basic material needs must be met if people are to realize fully their inherent dignity. Given the global prevalence of material want, the lesser social opportunities of people with physical and cognitive disabilities, the conflicting beliefs of a pluralistic society, and the challenge of mass migration and asylum seekers, what political principles should we endorse? Nussbaum brings her version of the Capabilities Approach to these problems, and she goes further: she takes on the challenge of recognizing the moral claims of nonhuman animals and the natural world. The insight that politics ought to treat human beings both as equal to each other and as having a worth beyond price is responsible for much that is fine in the modern Western political imagination. The Cosmopolitan Tradition extends Nussbaum's work, urging us to focus on the humanity we share rather than all that divides us.

A milestone in the history of popular theology, `The Screwtape Letters' is an iconic classic on spiritual warfare and the power of the devil. This profound and striking narrative takes the form of a series of letters from Screwtape, a devil high in the Infernal Civil Service, to his nephew Wormwood, a junior colleague engaged in his first mission on earth trying to secure the damnation of a young man who has just become a Christian. Although the young man initially looks to be a willing victim, he changes his ways and is `lost' to the young devil. Dedicated to Lewis's friend and colleague J.R.R. Tolkien, `The Screwtape Letters' is a timeless classic on spiritual conflict and the invisible realities which are part of our religious experience.

Sluimerende rassisme het na 1994 se reenboogdroom met 'n knal oopgebars. Die rassisme-sweer is besig om dit wat mooi en uniek van Suid-Afrikaners is, te besmet. In hierdie boek word voorraad opgeneem van die situasie deur na bekendes en minder bekendes se stories en ervarings te luister, dit saam te vat en aan die hand daarvan voorstelle te maak, sodat ons mekaar se andersheid kan vier.

We live in a world increasingly ruled by technology; we seem as governed by technology as we do by laws and regulations. Frighteningly often, the influence of technology in and on our lives goes completely unchallenged by citizens and governments. We comfort ourselves with the soothing refrain that technology has no morals and can display no prejudice, and it's only the users of technology who distort certain aspects of it. But is this statement actually true? Dr Robert Smith thinks it is dangerously untrue in the modern era. Having worked in the field of artificial intelligence for over 30 years, Smith reveals the mounting evidence that the mechanical actors in our lives do indeed have, or at least express, morals: they're just not the morals of the progressive modern society that we imagined we were moving towards. Instead, as we are just beginning to see - in the US elections and Brexit to name but a few - there are increasing incidences of machine bigotry, greed and the crass manipulation of our basest instincts. It is easy to assume that these are the result of programmer prejudices or the product of dark forces manipulating the masses through the network of the Internet. But what if there is something more fundamental and explicitly mechanical at play, something inherent within technology itself? This book demonstrates how non-scientific ideas have been encoded deep into our technological infrastructure. Offering a rigorous, fresh perspective on how technology has brought us to this place, Rage Inside the Machine challenges the long-held assumption that technology is an apolitical and amoral force. Shedding light on little-known historical stories and investigating the complex connections between scientific philosophy, institutional prejudice and new technology, this book offers a new, honest and more truly scientific vision of ourselves.

Patricia Churchland, the distinguished founder of neurophilosophy, reaches beyond the familiar argument of nature versus nurture to bring together insights from philosophy and revolutionary research in neuroscience. Scientific research may not be able to say with certainty what is ethical, and the definition of morality varies from person to person. But, from birth, our brains are configured to form bonds, to co-operate and to care. Delving into research studies, including work on twins and psychopaths, Churchland deepens our understanding of the brain's role in creating an ethical system. She then turns to philosophy to explore why morality is central to all societies, how it is transmitted through the generations and why different cultures live by different moral systems.

How can you be sure you're doing the right thing? Can some actions be legally right, yet morally wrong? What are the rights and wrongs of leaving a relationship? Are the rules different for sex? Is it always wrong to tell a lie? Why be good? No one pretends that making moral choices is easy. In this updated edition, which includes a new prologue on the moral minefields of power and wealth, Hugh Mackay argues that because morality is all about the way we treat each other, we make our best decisions - at work, among friends, in the neighbourhood, in a marriage or a family - when we imagine how our actions might affect the wellbeing of others. Our moral choices actually help shape the kind of society we live in, for better or worse. At a time when many of us are struggling to navigate an ever more complex world, Right & Wrong offers you the essential tools for making confident moral choices, and for deciding what's right for you and for the people around you.

Target success in AQA A-level Philosophy with this proven formula for effective, structured revision; key content coverage is combined with exam-style tasks and practical tips to create a revision guide that you can rely on to review, strengthen and test students' knowledge. With My Revision Notes, every student can: - Plan and manage a successful revision programme using the topic-by-topic planner - Consolidate subject knowledge by working through clear and focused content coverage - Test understanding and identify areas for improvement with regular 'Now Test Yourself' tasks and answers - Improve exam technique through practice questions, expert tips and examples of typical mistakes to avoid

'This lucid and riveting new biography at once rescuses Kierkegaard from the scholars and shows why he is such an intriguing and useful figure' Observer Soren Kierkegaard, one of the most passionate and challenging of modern philosophers, is now celebrated as the father of existentialism - yet his contemporaries described him as a philosopher of the heart. Over about a decade in the 1840s and 1850s, writings poured from his pen analysing love and suffering, courage and anxiety, religious longing and defiance, and forging a new philosophical style rooted in the inward drama of being human. As Christianity seemed to sleepwalk through a changing world, Kierkegaard dazzlingly revealed its spiritual power while exposing the poverty of official religion. His restless creativity was spurred on by his own failures: his relationship with the young woman whom he promised to marry, then left to devote himself to writing, haunted him throughout his life. Though tormented by the pressures of celebrity, he deliberately lived amidst the crowds in Copenhagen, known by everyone but, he felt, understood by no one. When he collapsed exhausted at the age of 42, he was still pursuing the question of existence: how to be a human being in this world? Clare Carlisle's innovative and moving biography writes Kierkegaard's remarkable life as far as possible from his own perspective, conveying what it was like to be this Socrates of Christendom - as he put it, living life forwards yet only understanding it backwards.

In this thought-provoking work, Mary Warnock explores what it is to own things, and the differences in our attitude to what we own and what we do not. Starting from the philosophical standpoints of Locke and Hume, the ownership of gardens is presented as a prime example, exploring both private and common ownership, historically and autobiographically. The author concludes that, besides pleasure and pride, ownership brings a sense of responsibility for what is owned and a fundamental question is brought to light: can we feel the same responsibility for what we do not, and never can, own? Applying this question to the natural world and the planet as a whole, a realistic and gradualist perspective is offered on confronting global environmental degradation. Critical Reflections on Ownership examines the effect of the Romantic Movement on our attitudes to nature and is a salient commentary on the history of ideas. Providing an accessible entrance into moral philosophy and its practical applications, this book is an invaluable source for students in the fields of politics and philosophy. Academics interested in conceptions of ownership, and in the interface between philosophy, morality and politics, will find this deeply considered insight to be a stimulating read.

Questions of ethics - about how we should act, our responsibilities to one another, the difference between right and wrong - have long been debated by philosophers the world over and form the foundations of government, culture and religion. Here, in concise, easy-to-read chapters, Ben Dupre explains the fundamentals of this discipline and how it is relevant to our lives today. Covering essential ethical concepts, including relativism, the golden rule and utilitarianism, as well as high-profile issues such as terrorism, censorship and the death penalty, 50 Ethics Ideas You Really Need to Know will lead you through the moral maze - and rattle your conscience in the process.

Initiated in 1950, this 2007 edition is the latest in a classic series of books of the same title. Journalist-historian S. L. A. Marshall wrote the first at the behest of Gen. George C. Marshall, who formed the great citizen army of World War II. The general believed officers of all services needed to base their professional commitment on a common moral-ethical grounding, which S. L. A. Marshall set out to explain. Ever since, these books have provided a foundation of thought, conduct, standards, and duty for American commissioned officers.Available now to the general public, this new edition takes the series' inspirational premise into the new century. It educates officers of all services, as well as civilians, about the fundamental moral-ethical requirements of being a commissioned officer in the armed forces of the United States. Understanding the common foundation of commissioned leadership and command of U.S. military forces is essential for achieving excellence in the joint operations of today's combat environment. This philosophy unites the officers of the uniformed services in the common calling of supporting, defending, and upholding the Constitution in service to their country.