Biotechnologies already on the horizon will enable us to be smarter, have better memories, be stronger and quicker, have more stamina, live longer, be more resistant to diseases, and enjoy richer emotional lives. To some of us, these prospects are heartening; to others, they are dreadful. In Beyond Humanity a leading philosopher offers a powerful and controversial exploration of urgent ethical issues concerning human enhancement. These raise enduring questions about what it is to be human, about individuality, about our relationship to nature, and about what sort of society we should strive to have. Allen E. Buchanan urges that the debate about enhancement needs to be informed by a proper understanding of evolutionary biology, which has discredited the simplistic conceptions of human nature used by many opponents of enhancement. He argues that there are powerful reasons for us to embark on the enhancement enterprise, and no objections to enhancement that are sufficient to outweigh them.

What is the role of government in protecting animal welfare? What principles should policy makers draw on as they try to balance animal welfare against human liberty?
Much has been written in recent years on our moral duties towards animals, but scholars and activists alike have neglected the important question of how far the state may go to enforce those duties. Kimberly K. Smith fills that gap by exploring how liberal political principles apply to animal welfare policy. Focusing on animal welfare in the United States, Governing Animals begins with an account of the historical relationship between animals and the development of the American liberal welfare state. It then turns to the central theoretical argument: Some animals (most prominently pets and livestock) may be considered members of the liberal social contract. That conclusion justifies limited state intervention to defend their welfare - even when such intervention may harm human citizens. Taking the analysis further, the study examines whether citizens may enjoy property rights in animals, what those rights entail, how animals may be represented in our political and legal institutions, and what strategies for reform are most compatible with liberal principles. The book takes up several policy issues along the way, from public funding of animal rescue operations to the ethics of livestock production, animal sacrifice, and animal fighting.
Beyond even these specific policy questions, this book asks what sort of liberalism is suitable for the challenges of the twenty-first century. Smith argues that investigating the political morality of our treatment of animals gives us insight into how to design practices and institutions that protect the most vulnerable members of our society, thus making of our shared world a more fitting home for both humans and the nonhumans to which we are so deeply connected.

Bioethics tells a heroic story about its origins and purpose. The impetus for its contemporary development can be traced to concern about widespread paternalism in medicine, mistreatment of research subjects used in medical experimentation, and questions about the implication of technological developments in medical practice. Bioethics, then, began as a defender of the interests of patients and the rights of research participants, and understood itself to play an important role as a critic of powerful interests in medicine and medical practice. Autonomy and the Situated Self argues that, as bioethics has become successful, it no longer clearly lives up to these founding ideals, and it offers a critique of the way in which contemporary bioethics has been co-opted by the very institutions it once sought (with good reason) to criticize and transform. In the process, it has become mainstream, moved from occupying the perspective of a critical outsider to enjoying the status of a respected insider, whose primary role is to defend existing institutional arrangements and its own privileged position. The mainstreaming of bioethics has resulted in its domestication: it is at home in the institutions it would once have viewed with skepticism, and a central part of practices it would once have challenged. Contemporary bioethics is increasingly dominated by a conception of autonomy that detaches the value of choice from the value of the things chosen, and the central role occupied by this conception makes it difficult for the bioethicist to make ethical judgments. Consequently, despite its very public successes, contemporary bioethics is largely failing to offer the ethical guidance it purports to be able to provide. In addition to providing a critique, this book offers an alternative framework that is designed to allow bioethicists to address the concerns that led to the creation of bioethics in the first place. This alternative framework is oriented around a conception of autonomy that works within the ethical guidelines provided by a contemporary form of virtue ethics, and which connects the value of autonomous choice to a conception of human flourishing.

In 1976, the US Supreme Court ruled in Gregg v. Georgia that the death penalty was constitutional if it complied with certain specific provisions designed to ensure that it was reserved for the 'worst of the worst.' The same court had rejected the death penalty just four years before in the Furman decision because it found that the penalty had been applied in a capricious and arbitrary manner. The 1976 decision ushered in the 'modern' period of the US death penalty, setting the country on a course to execute over 1,400 inmates in the ensuing years, with over 8,000 individuals currently sentenced to die. Now, forty years after the decision, the eminent political scientist Frank Baumgartner along with a team of younger scholars (Marty Davidson, Kaneesha Johnson, Arvind Krishnamurthy, and Colin Wilson) have collaborated to assess the empirical record and provide a definitive account of how the death penalty has been implemented. Each chapter addresses a precise empirical question and provides evidence, not opinion, about whether how the modern death penalty has functioned. They decided to write the book after Justice Breyer issued a dissent in a 2015 death penalty case in which he asked for a full briefing on the constitutionality of the death penalty. In particular, they assess the extent to which the modern death penalty has met the aspirations of Gregg or continues to suffer from the flaws that caused its rejection in Furman. To answer this question, they provide the most comprehensive statistical account yet of the workings of the capital punishment system. Authoritative and pithy, the book is intended for both students in a wide variety of fields, researchers studying the topic, and-not least-the Supreme Court itself.

An Irish Times and The i Book of 2022 'Tense and intimate . . . an education' - Geoff Dyer 'Enriching, sobering and at times heartrending. A wonder' - Sir Lenny Henry 'Authentic, fascinating and deeply moving' - Terry Waite __________ Can someone in prison be more free than someone outside? Would we ever be good if we never felt shame? What makes a person worthy of forgiveness? Andy West teaches philosophy in prisons. Every day he has conversations with people inside about their lives, discusses their ideas and feelings, and listens as they explore new ways to think about their situation. When Andy steps into a prison, he also confronts his inherited shame: his father, uncle and brother all spent time behind bars. While Andy has built a different life for himself, he still fears that their fate will also be his. As he discusses pressing questions of truth, identity and hope with his students, he searches for his own form of freedom too. Moving, sympathetic, wise and frequently funny, The Life Inside is an elegantly written and unforgettable memoir. Through a blend of storytelling and gentle philosophical questioning, it offers a new insight into our stretched justice system, our failing prisons and the complex lives being lived inside. __________ 'Inspiring' - The Observer 'Strives with humour and compassion to understand the phenomenon of prison' - Sydney Review of Books 'Expands both heart and mind' - Ciaran Thapar 'A fascinating and enlightening journey . . . A legitimate page-turner' - 3AM

Racial and ethnic categories have appeared in recent scientific work in novel ways and in relation to a variety of disciplines: medicine, forensics, population genetics and also developments in popular genealogy. Once again, biology is foregrounded in the discussion of human identity. Of particular importance is the preoccupation with origins and personal discovery and the increasing use of racial and ethnic categories in social policy. This new genetic knowledge, expressed in technology and practice, has the potential to disrupt how race and ethnicity are debated, managed and lived. As such, this volume investigates the ways in which existing social categories are both maintained and transformed at the intersection of the natural (sciences) and the cultural (politics). The contributors include medical researchers, anthropologists, historians of science and sociologists of race relations; together, they explore the new and challenging landscape where biology becomes the stuff of identity.

Reproductive technology allows us to test embryos' genes before deciding whether to transfer them to a woman's uterus. Embryo selection raises many ethical questions but is virtually unregulated in the United States. This comprehensive study considers the ethical, medical, political, and economic aspects of developing appropriate regulation.

Strategies or decisions aimed at affecting, in a manner considered to be positive, the genetic heritage of a child in the context of human reproduction are increasingly being accepted in contemporary society. As a result, unnerving similarities between earlier selection ideology so central to the discredited eugenic regimes of the 20th century and those now on offer suggest that a new era of eugenics has dawned. The time is ripe, therefore, for considering and evaluating from an ethical perspective both current and future selection practices. This inter-disciplinary volume blends research from embryology, genetics, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and history. In so doing, it constructs a thorough picture of the procedures emerging from today's reproductive developments, including a rigorous ethical argumentation concerning the possible advantages and risks related to the new eugenics.

Calum MacKellar is Director of Research of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, Edinburgh, and Visiting Professor of Bioethics at St Mary's University College, London, UK.

Christopher Bechtel holds a degree in philosophy and is a Research Fellow with the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, Edinburgh, UK.

Powerful, wry essays offering modern takes on a primitive practice, from one of our most widely read death penalty abolitionists As Ruth Bader Ginsburg has noted, people who are well represented at trial rarely get the death penalty. But as Marc Bookman shows in a dozen brilliant essays, the problems with capital punishment run far deeper than just bad representation. Exploring prosecutorial misconduct, racist judges and jurors, drunken lawyering, and executing the innocent and the mentally ill, these essays demonstrate that precious few people on trial for their lives get the fair trial the Constitution demands. Today, death penalty cases continue to capture the hearts, minds, and eblasts of progressives of all stripes-including the rich and famous (see Kim Kardashian's advocacy)-but few people with firsthand knowledge of America's "injustice system" have the literary chops to bring death penalty stories to life. Enter Marc Bookman. With a voice that is both literary and journalistic, the veteran capital defense lawyer and seven-time Best American Essays "notable" author exposes the dark absurdities and fatal inanities that undermine the logic of the death penalty wherever it still exists. In essays that cover seemingly "ordinary" capital cases over the last thirty years, Bookman shows how violent crime brings out our worst human instincts-revenge, fear, retribution, and prejudice. Combining these emotions with the criminal legal system's weaknesses-purposely ineffective, arbitrary, or widely infected with racism and misogyny-is a recipe for injustice. Bookman has been charming and educating readers in the pages of The Atlantic, Mother Jones, and Slate for years. His wit and wisdom are now collected and preserved in A Descending Spiral.

Intensive animal agriculture wrongs many, many animals. Philosophers have argued, on this basis, that most people in wealthy Western contexts are morally obligated to avoid animal products. This book explains why the author thinks that's mistaken. He reaches this negative conclusion by contending that the major arguments for veganism fail: they don't establish the right sort of connection between producing and eating animal-based foods. Moreover, if they didn't have this problem, then they would have other ones: we wouldn't be obliged to abstain from all animal products, but to eat strange things instead-e.g., roadkill, insects, and things left in dumpsters. On his view, although we have a collective obligation not to farm animals, there is no specific diet that most individuals ought to have. Nevertheless, he does think that some people are obligated to be vegans, but that's because they've joined a movement, or formed a practical identity, that requires that sacrifice. This book argues that there are good reasons to make such a move, albeit not ones strong enough to show that everyone must do likewise.

The Evolution of the British Funeral Industry in the 20th Century examines the shifts that have taken place in the funeral industry since 1900, focusing on the figure of the undertaker and exploring how organisational change and attempts to gain recognition as a professional service provider saw the role morph into that of 'funeral director'. As the disposal of the dead increased in complexity during the twentieth century, the role of the undertaker/funeral director has mirrored this change. Whilst the undertaker of 1900 primarily encoffined and transported the body, today's funeral director provides other services, such as taking responsibility for the body of the deceased and embalming, and has overseen changes such as the increasing preference for cremation, the impact of technology on the production of coffins and the shift to motorised transport. These factors, together with the problem of succession for some family-run funeral businesses, have led large organisations to make acquisitions and manage funerals on a centralised basis, achieving economies of scale. This book examines how the occupation has sought to reposition itself and how the 'funeral director' has become an essential functionary in funerary practices. However, despite striving for new-found status the role is hindered by two key issues: the stigma of handling the dead, and the perception of making a profit from loss.

As first responders to public problems, administrators must survey situations, identify solutions, and occasionally make executive decisions that are binding upon the government as a whole. The ability for administrators to assert claims that orient the government in a particular direction is not only powerful, but it can also be problematic and even dangerous. For administrators, the tension between moving in a spirited way, and remaining sensible, is a problem of how to exercise one's discretion, especially in the U.S. context, which demands that both be considered and actualized. In dealing with these competing expectations, Chad B. Newswander analyzes how administrators can incorporate executive, legislative, and judicial tendencies to help them handle the problem of discretion. Expanding the thinking of the constitutional school of public administration thought, Administrative Ethics and Executive Decisions is a theoretically grounded and empirically rich study of how administrators incorporate a constitutional ethos to handle the problem of discretion.

This book was originally published in 1999. When one or more essential organs failed, the consequence used to be death. However, conventional medicine has developed artificial means of extending life, the most successful of which is transplantation. The most common form of organ to be transplanted is a kidney which will, on average, function for about a decade in its recipient. Organ transplantation as a whole is widely practiced in most countries. However, few can procure enough organs to meet demand. Many people who are suitable for a transplant die without getting one. Many kidney patients can access and stay alive on dialysis until a suitable organ becomes available. However, even here, sufficiency of organs would be beneficial because lesser reliance on dialysis would reduce healthcare costs and be better for patient quality of life. This invaluable book shows that in the light of current practice and attitudes, increasing living donor transplantation (LDT) levels is feasible. It is one of the few works to systematically analyse the ethical and legal issues involved in LDT use in the light of empirical evidence, including new data derived from a unique programme of interviews and questionnaires with transplant professionals, living donors and recipients. Readers are led to an understanding of when LDT is ethically and legally acceptable and to the strong case for using it much more extensively.

This book departs from conventional bioethics approaches to consider the different moral and political economies involved in the donation and transformation of human organs, gametes, stem cells and breastmilk. Collectively, the authors draw attention to the different values associated with research and therapy on body part and tissue exchange through an examination of altruism, gift and commodity relations. They expertly discuss issues such as the bioethical conundrums around the circulation and use of human biological materials and services as well as their legal and regulatory limits, the economic benefits and health values attributed to various body parts and products, and the matter of immaterial labour and affective relations between donors, recipients and others involved in tissue provision. Based on new empirical research, this interdisciplinary collection of original and timely essays will be of interest to students and researchers in gender and cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, science and technology studies, as well as medical professionals with an interest in health and reproduction.

Today, it often seems as though Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) have reached a stage of normalization, at least in some countries and among certain social groups. Apparently some practices - for example in vitro fertilization (IVF) - have become standard worldwide. The contributors to Assisted Reproduction Across Borders argue against normalization as an uncontested overall trend. This volume reflects on the state of the art of ARTs. From feminist perspectives, the contributors focus on contemporary political debates triggered by ARTs. They examine the varying ways in which ARTs are interpreted and practised in different contexts, depending on religious, moral and political approaches. Assisted Reproduction Across Borders embeds feminist analysis of ARTs across a wide variety of countries and cultural contexts, discussing controversial practices such as surrogacy from the perspective of the global South as well as the global North as well as inequalities in terms of access to IVF. This volume will appeal to scholars and students of anthropology, ethnography, philosophy, political science, history, sociology, film studies, media studies, literature, art history, area studies, and interdisciplinary areas such as gender studies, cultural studies, and postcolonial studies.

The Drone Debate offers a thorough investigation of the where, why, how, and when of the U.S.'s use of UAVs. Beginning with a historical overview of the use of drones in warfare, it then addresses whether targeted killing operations are strategically wise, whether they are permissible under international law, and the related ethical issues. It also looks at the political factors behind the use of drones, including domestic and global attitudes toward their use and potential issues of proliferation and escalation. Finally, the use of drones by other countries, such as Israel and China, is examined. Each chapter features a case study that highlights particular incidents and patterns of operation in specific regions, including Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and Libya and strike types (signature strikes, personality strikes, etc.).

Ethical Reporting of Sensitive Topics explores the underlying complexities that journalists may face when covering difficult news stories. Reporting on issues such as suicide, sexual abuse, or migration is a skill that is often glossed over in a journalist's education. By combining theory and practice, this collection will correct this oversight and give journalists the expertise and understanding to report on these subjects responsibly and ethically. Contributors to this volume are an international group of journalists-turned- academics, who share their first-hand experiences and unique professional insight into best ethical journalistic practice for reporting on sensitive topics. Drawing from a range of case studies, contributors discuss the most appropriate approach to, for example, describing a shooter who has killed a group of schoolchildren or interviewing someone who has lost everything in a natural disaster. Readers are invited to consider factors which have the potential to influence the reporting of these sorts of topics, including bias, sensationalism, conflict of interest, grief, vulnerability, and ignorance of one's own privilege. Ethical Reporting of Sensitive Topics aims to support all journalists, from students of journalism and individuals encountering a newsroom for the first time, to those veteran journalists or specialist journalists who seek to better their reporting skills.

This collection adopts an interdisciplinary approach in order to understand the various factors at work in genocidal processes and their aftermath. The strong emphasis on legal norms, legal concepts and legal measures in other studies fails to consider further significant issues in relation to genocide. This book aims to redress this balance exploring social dynamics and human behaviour as well as the interplay of various psychological, political, sociological, anthropological and historical factors at work in genocidal processes.With contributions from top international scholars, this volume provides an integrated perspective on risk and resilience, acknowledging the importance of mitigating factors in understanding and preventing genocide. It explores a range of issues including the conceptual definition of genocide, the notion of intent, preventive measures, transitional justice, the importance of property, the role of memory, self or national interest and principles of social existence.Genocide, Risk and Resilience aims to cross conceptual, disciplinary and temporal boundaries and in doing so, provides rich insights for scholars from across political science, history, law, philosophy, anthropology and theology.

Ethical Reporting of Sensitive Topics explores the underlying complexities that journalists may face when covering difficult news stories. Reporting on issues such as suicide, sexual abuse, or migration is a skill that is often glossed over in a journalist's education. By combining theory and practice, this collection will correct this oversight and give journalists the expertise and understanding to report on these subjects responsibly and ethically. Contributors to this volume are an international group of journalists-turned- academics, who share their first-hand experiences and unique professional insight into best ethical journalistic practice for reporting on sensitive topics. Drawing from a range of case studies, contributors discuss the most appropriate approach to, for example, describing a shooter who has killed a group of schoolchildren or interviewing someone who has lost everything in a natural disaster. Readers are invited to consider factors which have the potential to influence the reporting of these sorts of topics, including bias, sensationalism, conflict of interest, grief, vulnerability, and ignorance of one's own privilege. Ethical Reporting of Sensitive Topics aims to support all journalists, from students of journalism and individuals encountering a newsroom for the first time, to those veteran journalists or specialist journalists who seek to better their reporting skills.

Policing is a highly pragmatic occupation. It is designed to achieve the important social ends of peacekeeping and public safety, and is empowered to do so using means that are ordinarily seen as problematic; that is, the use of force, deception, and invasions of privacy, along with considerable discretion. It is often suggested that the ends of policing justify the use of otherwise problematic means, but do they? This book explores this question from a philosophical perspective. The relationship between ends and means has a long and contested history both in moral/practical reasoning and public policy. Looking at this history through the lens of policing, criminal justice philosopher John Kleinig explores the dialectic of ends and means (whether the ends justify the means, or whether the ends never justify the means) and offers a new, sharpened perspective on police ethics. After tracing the various ways in which ends and means may be construed, the book surveys a series of increasingly concrete issues, focusing especially on those that arise in policing contexts. The competing moral demands made by ends and means culminate in considerations of noble cause corruption, dirty hands theory, lesser degradations (such as tear gas, tasers, chokeholds, and so on), and finally, those means deemed impermissible by the majority in Western culture, such as torture.

How do we know right from wrong, good from bad, help from hindrance, and how can we judge the behaviour of others?

Ethics are the rules and guidelines that we use to make such judgements. Often there are no clear answers, which make this subject both interesting and potentially frustrating. In this book, the authors offer readers the opportunity to develop and express their own opinions in relation to ethics in psychology.

There are many psychological studies that appear to have been harmful or cruel to the people or animals that took part in them. For example, memory researchers carried out studies on a man who had no memory for over forty years, but because he had no memory he was never able to agree to the studies. Is this a reasonable thing to do to someone? Comparative psychologist Harry Harlow found that he could create severe and lasting distress in monkeys by keeping them in social isolation. Is this a reasonable thing to do even if we find out useful things about human distress? If you were able to use psychological techniques to break someone down so that they revealed information that was useful to your government, would you do it? If so, why? If not, why not? These ethical issues are not easy to resolve and the debates continue as we encounter new dilemmas.

This book uses examples from psychological research to look at:

• key ethical issues
• ethical guidelines of psychologists
• socially sensitive research
• ethics in applied psychology
• the use of animals in research

This book is essential reading for undergraduate and pre-undergraduate students of psychology and related subjects such as philosophy and social policy.

The Biotechnology Act in Norway, one of the most restrictive in Europe, forbids egg donation and surrogacy and has rescinded the anonymity clause with respect to donor insemination. Thus, it limits people's choice as to how they can procreate within the boundaries of the nation state. The author pursues this significant datum ethnographically and addresses the issues surrounding contemporary biopolitics in Norway. This involves investigating such fundamental questions as the relation between individual and society, meanings of kinship and relatedness, the moral status of the embryo and the role of science, religion and ethics in state policies. Even though the book takes reproductive technologies as its focus, it reveals much about vital processes that are central to contemporary Norwegian society.

Producing and rearing children are immensely important human activities. Procreation and Parenthood offers new and original essays by leading philosophers on some of the main ethical issues raised by these activities. An Introduction supplies an accessible overview of the current debates. Individual chapters then take up particular problems such as: the morality of bringing people into existence; what limits there might be on a person's freedom to reproduce; whether human beings need to ensure that they only create the best possible children; whether there is a conflict between justice and parents' devotion of time and money to their own children; and, whether parents acquire their role because of their intention to do so or because they are responsible for bringing children into being.

An American Dilemma examines the issue of capital punishment in the United States as it conflicts with the nation's obligations under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. In a number of high profile cases, foreign nationals have been executed after being denied their rights under the Vienna Convention. The International Court of Justice has ruled against the United States, but individual states have chosen to defy international law. The Supreme Court has not resolved the question of legal remedies for such breaches.