Over the years, companies have adopted hiring algorithms because they promise wider job candidate pools, lower recruitment costs and less human bias. Despite these promises, they also bring perils. Using them can inflict unintentional harms on individual human rights. These include the five human rights to work, equality and nondiscrimination, privacy, free expression and free association. Despite the human rights harms of hiring algorithms, the AI ethics literature has predominantly focused on abstract ethical principles. This is problematic for two reasons. (...) First, AI principles have been criticized for being vague and not actionable. Second, the use of vague ethical principles to discuss algorithmic risks does not provide any accountability. This lack of accountability creates an algorithmic accountability gap. Closing this gap is crucial because, without accountability, the use of hiring algorithms can lead to discrimination and unequal access to employment opportunities. This paper makes two contributions to the AI ethics literature. First, it frames the ethical risks of hiring algorithms using international human rights law as a universal standard for determining algorithmic accountability. Second, it evaluates four types of algorithmic impact assessments in terms of how effectively they address the five human rights of job applicants implicated in hiring algorithms. It determines which of the assessments can help companies audit their hiring algorithms and close the algorithmic accountability gap. (shrink)

In _Beyond Animal Rights_, Josephine Donovan and Carol J. Adams introduced feminist "ethic of care" theory into philosophical discussions of the treatment of animals. In this new volume, seven essays from _Beyond Animal Rights_ are joined by nine new articles-most of which were written in response to that book-and a new introduction that situates feminist animal care theory within feminist theory and the larger debate over animal rights. Contributors critique theorists' reliance on natural rights doctrine and utilitarianism, which, they (...) suggest, have a masculine bias. They argue for ethical attentiveness and sympathy in our relationships with animals and propose a link between the continuing subjugation of women and the human domination of nature. Beginning with the earliest articulation of the idea in the mid-1980s and continuing to the theory's most recent revisions, this volume presents the most complete portrait of the evolution of the feminist-care tradition. (shrink)

Laffin, Josephine On 31 October 2017 it will be five hundred years since Martin Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, the date traditionally hailed as the start of the Lutheran Reformation. Another anniversary is a personal one: it is twenty-five years since I began teaching Reformation history. It seems an appropriate time, therefore, to pause and reflect on the significance of this task.

L’Union européenne nous invite à repenser les conditions et les attributs de la souveraineté traditionnellement rattachée aux États-nations. Dans cet article, est proposée une tentative de re-conceptualisation à partir des différentes définitions de la souveraineté, et de l’analyse d’un exemple : celui de la politique étrangère et de l’exercice diplomatique de l’Union européenne. En effet, la souveraineté possède toujours deux faces : une face interne qui se charge de définir la loi, le droit, et de les faire appliquer sur un (...) territoire délimité ; une face externe qui exporte et affirme les intérêts, les valeurs et les principes qui prévalent en interne. La politique étrangère et son outil principal qu’est l’action diplomatique, consistent dans l’expression vers l’extérieur de la souveraineté d’un corps politique. Nous nous interrogerons ainsi sur la nature de la souveraineté incarnée par l’Union européenne. (shrink)

Résumé Dans les situations sociomotrices, l’engagement des participants n’est pas seulement réductible aux communications directes. Il est surtout lié à l’émergence de systèmes de signes assurant la dynamique globale du jeu. Nous proposons d’appréhender la communication comme un système d’interaction global constitué de plusieurs canaux. On y retrouve les communications directes mais aussi quatre systèmes de signes : celui des praxèmes, des gestèmes, des gestes et des communications verbales. Ce travail interroge la place de chaque canal communicationnel dans deux sports (...) et deux jeux traditionnels. Nous recrutons trois groupes de 20 étudiants pour participer aux jeux mentionnés. Les communications sont filmées, décryptées, triées et catégorisées. On constate une forte prévalence des praxèmes dans les sports collectifs, tandis que la répartition des communications est plus équilibrée dans les jeux traditionnels. La quantité, la variabilité et l’organisation des signes sont sensibles à la logique interne. Globalement, cette recherche tend à montrer que les jeux sont un formidable laboratoire in vivo pour comprendre l’organisation des systèmes de signes. Spécifiquement, elle apporte des informations sur le pouvoir socialisant de la sémiotricité de chaque jeu et sur le renouvellement des pédagogies qu’elle peut engendrer. (shrink)

In a project The Hastings Center is now running on the future of prenatal testing, we are encountering clear examples, both in established law and in the practices of individual providers, of failures to respect women's reproductive autonomy: when testing is not offered to certain demographics of women, for instance, or when the choices of women to terminate or continue pregnancies are prohibited or otherwise not supported. But this project also raises puzzles for reproductive autonomy. We have learned that some (...) clinicians and patients do not discuss the fact that prenatal testing can lead to a decision about whether to terminate a pregnancy—they just don't talk about it. And while the decision whether to agree to prenatal screening and diagnostic testing is to be made with women's free and informed consent, many screening tests have been routinized in such a way that some women do not even recall agreeing to testing, while others feel that agreeing to testing is what their clinicians expect of them or that the testing is necessary to protect themselves and their families from the significant financial hardship of raising a child with a disability. In the face of these pressures, can one really say that women are freely choosing to undergo testing or are freely choosing to continue or terminate a pregnancy following receipt of test results? The reality of these pressures is requiring us to consider expanding the scope of our investigation beyond the clinical encounter to the broader context—to think harder about what reproductive autonomy means and how best to enhance it. (shrink)

Decoding Abortion Rhetoric: Communicating Social Change. By Celeste Michelle Condit.

This paper describes the exploratory study which was carried out in Zimbabwe with an elementary Grade 7 class and with the firstand third- year student teachers, at a Teacher Training College, "doing philosophy", using Lipman's PIXIE and HARRY novels, respectively, and the proposed critical inquiry methodology.Secondly the perceptions of the participants, about their experiences during these exploratory sessions, which were derived from the researcher's self-evaluation and the students' informal evaluations, are presented in the paper.

This article is the lead piece in a special report that presents the results of a bioethical investigation into chimeric research, which involves the insertion of human cells into nonhuman animals and nonhuman animal embryos, including into their brains. Rapid scientific developments in this field may advance knowledge and could lead to new therapies for humans. They also reveal the conceptual, ethical, and procedural limitations of existing ethics guidance for human‐nonhuman chimeric research. Led by bioethics researchers working closely with an (...) interdisciplinary work group, the investigation focused on generating conceptual clarity and identifying improvements to governance approaches, with the goal of helping scholars, funders, scientists, institutional leaders, and oversight bodies (embryonic stem cell research oversight [ESCRO] committees and institutional animal care and use committees [IACUCs]) deliver principled and trustworthy oversight of this area of science. The article, which focuses on human‐nonhuman animal chimeric research that is stem cell based, identifies key ethical issues in and offers ten recommendations regarding the ethics and oversight of this research. Turning from bioethics’ previous focus on human‐centered questions about the ethics of “humanization” and this research's potential impact on concepts like human dignity, this article emphasizes the importance of nonhuman animal welfare concerns in chimeric research and argues for less‐siloed governance and oversight and more‐comprehensive public communication. (shrink)

Animals, Mind, and Matter challenges the current ascription of object status to animals in the law, commerce, and science, where they are conceived as property and commodities. Instead, Donovan establishes that animals are living subjects, have minds and opinions, and care about what happens to them.

Contains eight contributions which extend feminist ethic-of-care theory to the issue of animal well-being. As a group, the essays aim to suggest ways that theorists can move beyond the notion of animal rights to establish care as a basis for the ethical treatment of animals. Annotation c. by Book.

Many scientists and doctors hope that affordable genome sequencing will lead to more personalized medical care and improve public health in ways that will benefit children, families, and society more broadly. One hope in particular is that all newborns could be sequenced at birth, thereby setting the stage for a lifetime of medical care and self‐directed preventive actions tailored to each child's genome. Indeed, commentators often suggest that universal genome sequencing is inevitable. Such optimism can come with the presumption that (...) discussing the potential limits, cost, and downsides of widespread application of genomic technologies is pointless, excessively pessimistic, or overly cautious. We disagree. Given the pragmatic challenges associated with determining what sequencing data mean for the health of individuals, the economic costs associated with interpreting and acting on such data, and the psychosocial costs of predicting one's own or one's child's future life plans based on uncertain testing results, we think this hope and optimism deserve to be tempered.In the analysis that follows, we distinguish between two reasons for using sequencing: to diagnose individual infants who have been identified as sick and to screen populations of infants who appear to be healthy. We also distinguish among three contexts in which sequencing for either diagnosis or screening could be deployed: in clinical medicine, in public health programs, and as a direct‐to‐consumer service. Each of these contexts comes with different professional norms, policy considerations, and public expectations. Finally, we distinguish between two main types of genome sequencing: targeted sequencing, where only specific genes are sequenced or analyzed, and whole‐exome or whole‐genome sequencing, where all the DNA or all the coding segments of all genes are sequenced and analyzed.In a symptomatic newborn, targeted or genome‐wide sequencing can help guide other tests for diagnosis or for specific treatment that is urgently needed. Clinicians use the infant's symptoms (or phenotype) to interrogate the sequencing data. These same complexities and uncertainties, however, limit the usefulness of genome‐wide sequencing as a population screening tool. While we recognize considerable benefit in using targeted sequencing to screen for or detect specific conditions that meet the criteria for inclusion in newborn screening panels, use of genome‐wide sequencing as a sole screening tool for newborns is at best premature. We conclude that sequencing technology can be beneficially used in newborns when that use is nuanced and attentive to context. (shrink)

Background There is now rising consensus that community engagement is ethically and scientifically essential for all types of health research. Yet debate continues about the moral aims, methods and appropriate timing in the research cycle for community engagement to occur, and whether the answer should vary between different types of health research. Co-design and collaborative partnership approaches that involve engagement during priority-setting, for example, are common in many forms of applied health research but are not regular practice in biomedical research. (...) In this study, we empirically examine the normative question: should communities be engaged when setting priorities for biomedical research projects, and, if so, how and for what purpose? Methods We conducted in-depth interviews with 31 members of the biomedical research community from the UK, Australia, and African countries who had engaged communities in their work. Interview data were thematically analysed. Results Our study shows that biomedical researchers and community engagement experts strongly support engagement in biomedical research priority-setting, except under certain circumstances where it may be harmful to communities. However, they gave two distinct responses on what ethical purpose it should serve—either empowerment or instrumental goals—and their perspectives on how it should achieve those goals also varied. Three engagement approaches were suggested: community-initiated, synergistic, and consultative. Pre-engagement essentials and barriers to meaningful engagement in biomedical research priority-setting are also reported. Conclusions This study offers initial evidence that meaningful engagement in priority-setting should potentially be defined slightly differently for biomedical research relative to certain types of applied health research and that engagement practice in biomedical research should not be dominated by instrumental goals and approaches, as is presently the case. (shrink)

The mortality and morbidity resulting from noncommunicable diseases including cancer in sub- Saharan Africa are predicted to overtake that of infectious diseases by the year 2030. Esophageal cancer is on the increase in Tanzania. This study estimates risk factors for esophageal cancer, ethical issues and the level of awareness of cancer related services among adults in rural Kilimanjaro. A cross sectional descriptive study was conducted of adults aged 18 years and above in three wards, namely, Kahe, mabogini and Arusha Chini, (...) Moshi Rural District, Kilimanjaro region. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with a total of 419 individuals. The mean age was 36.47 =13.49) years. Of those who participated, 211 were male and 60% reported to have completed primary education. A majority of participants were knowledgeable about esophageal cancer risk factors. Overall, 15% and 23% of the participants reported to have been smoking and drinking alcohol, respectively. Male respondents were almost three times more likely to be smokers as compared to female respondents. Moreover, people who were self-employed were about five times more likely to be smokers as compared to those who were unemployed.. Male respondents were almost two times more likely to be drinkers as compared to female respondents. Overall, the level of awareness of cancer related health services was about 70%. The study findings confirm that despite a good level of knowledge about risk factors for esophageal cancer, the practice of exposure to risk factors is alarmingly high. Awareness of where to seek cancer related health services was high with hospitals been mentioned by the majority though there was low understanding on modalities of treatment among adults in Rural Kilimanjaro. Intervention measures should aim at further increasing knowledge of cancer risk factors and reduce the practice of such risks. Ethical matters including truth telling, ageism and autonomy need to be addressed to improve the perception of cancer related health issues and health seeking behaviour. (shrink)

The authors aim in this article to show why it is extremely difficult to expect representatives of missionary religions to engage in productive interreligious dialogue. The article demonstrates how the imperative to convert, which is rooted in a sense of epistemic authority that one holds the best version of truth, precludes interreligious dialogue among religionists. The authors note, on the one hand, that the primary condition for any dialogue is that each of those involved come to the dialogue intellectually humble. (...) On the other hand, the authors note that for missionary religionists to embrace intellectual humility requires a fundamental rethink of their claims of epistemological certainty and final epistemic authority. This implies abandoning the missionary mandate and witnessing built on a sense of intellectual certainty and pride. The authors therefore argue that intellectual humility is a necessary condition for productive interreligious dialogue. Because representatives of missionary religions claim certainty about the knowledge they espouse, what is paraded as interreligious dialogue is largely a myth. It will remain a mere concept that yields little to no tangible result unless these representatives embrace intellectual humility, which is more achievable within a secularist framework.Contribution: This research contributes to the seemingly easy but difficult discourse and practice about interreligious dialogue. It brings to the limelight a more appropriate conception of dialogue in the context of interreligious dialogue, and explains how side-lining that conception empties the predominant practice of interreligous dialogue. This contribution is useful to HTS, which focuses on theological and religious studies, as well as critical study of religions. (shrink)

Was ist Musik? Diese musikphilosophische Fragestel-lung bildet den Ausgangspunkt von Josephine Geislers phänomenologischer Untersuchung, die einen wichtigen Beitrag zur anthropologischen Grundlagenforschung liefert. Geisler greift in diesem Zusammenhang nicht nur auf die Phänomenologie der Tonwahrnehmung Husserls zurück, sondern auch auf Helmuth Plessners ästhesiologische Schriften, die bisher kaum rezipiert wurden. Auch Günther Anders' musikphänomenologische Habilitationsschrift - noch nicht veröffentlicht und daher wenig bekannt - dient als theoretische Grundlage. Anhand dieser drei Autoren legt die Arbeit mit den Kategorien Zeitlichkeit, Leiblichkeit und Gestimmtheit (...) anthropologische Konstanten des Verhältnisses Mensch-Musik frei und verweist damit auf den normativen Eigensinn des besonderen Wahrnehmungsereignisses Musik. (shrink)

As new parents quickly learn, parenting always involves choosing your battles. Ideally, parents have the freedom to make those moral choices without the prejudice of an unreasonable or premature inflicted ought. Resolving the predictive uncertainties of genomic information is the professional responsibility of the biomedical community, just as clarifying the impact of global warming or assessing the risks of rising multidrug resistance is the responsibility of similar specialists. Until sequencing can give parents clear and meaningful information that they can use (...) to protect their children without also burdening parents with uncertain findings about which little if anything can be done, it makes no sense to impute an obligation for them to seek it out. To do so not only increases the mental and emotional burden on parents but also distorts the scope of parental responsibility in ways that undermine parents’ capacity to play their immediate role as the nurturers of a new life. (shrink)

Laffin, Josephine The archbishop of Adelaide, it must be acknowledged, did not play a prominent role at Vatican II. Matthew Beovich never gave a speech in the aula, the Council 'hall' inside St Peter's Basilica, nor did he prepare a written submission. At first glance, his seemingly minimal participation reinforces the damning judgment of Patrick O'Farrell that members of the Australian hierarchy were 'frequently uncomprehending and even resistant to the spirit of change'. With this from the doyen of Catholic (...) historians in Australia in the late twentieth century, it is not surprising that Ian Breward concluded in his survey of Australian religious history: 'Most Australian bishops were bemused observers of a process which shattered their convictions about the uniformity of the Roman Catholic Church. Australian contributions to Council debates were few. The pragmatism and traditionalism of the Australian Church stood nakedly exposed'. (shrink)

The cornea was the first human solid tissue to be transplanted successfully, and is now a common procedure in ophthalmic surgery. The grafts come from deceased donors. Corneal therapies are now being developed that rely on tissue from living-related donors. This presents new ethical challenges for ophthalmic surgeons, who have hitherto been somewhat insulated from debates in transplantation and donation ethics. This paper provides the first overview of the ethical considerations generated by ocular tissue donation from living donors and suggests (...) how these might be addressed in practice. These are discussed in the context of a novel treatment for corneal limbal stem cell deficiency. This involves limbal cell grafts which are transplanted, either directly or after ex vivo expansion, onto recipient stem cell-deficient eyes. Where only one eye is diseased, the unaffected eye can be used as a source of graft tissue. Bilateral disease requires an allogenic donation, preferably from a genetically related living donor. While numerous papers have dealt with the theory, surgical approaches and clinical outcomes of limbal stem cell therapies, none has addressed the ethical dimensions of this form of tissue donation. (shrink)

In July 2000, the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma passed a resolution that would effectively expel a significant portion of its tribal members. The resolution amended the Nation's constitution by changing its membership criteria. Previously, potential members needed to show descent from an enrollee of the 1906 Dawes Rolls, the official American Indian tribal rolls established by the Dawes Commission to facilitate the allotment of reservation land. The amended constitution requires possession of one-eighth Seminole Indian blood, a requirement that a significant (...) portion of the tribe's membership cannot fulfill. The members of the Nation who fail to meet this new membership criterion all have one thing in common: they are black.Descendents of former slaves who came to live among the Seminole Indians of Florida in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the black Seminoles have been officially recognized by the U.S. government as members of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma since 1866. (shrink)

When the use of CRIsPR-Cas9 to edit DNA was first reported in 2012, it was quickly heralded by scientists, policymakers, and journalists as a transformative technology. CRISPR-Cas9 provides the means to change DNA in ways that either were not generally possible using previous genetic technologies or that were orders of magnitude more laborious or inefficient to undertake. CRISPR's possible applications were readily apparent and seemingly endless, from supercharging laboratory research to modifying insects that transmit disease to eliminating genetic conditions. By (...) 2015, Wired magazine was calling the discovery "The Genesis Engine."Against a backdrop of disappointing results from gene transfer... (shrink)

Laffin, Josephine Review(s) of: Blessed and beautiful: Picturing the saints, by Robert Kiely, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), pp.344, $49.95.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Two Poems JOSEPHINE BALMER The House Opposite (Walbrook, London, 78 CE) Give this note to the cooper Junius, just opposite the house of Catullus... —Bloomberg Writing Tablets, 14 I unpack my treasures of Syrian glass, plates sourced from the slopes of Vesuvius. The walls I paint with frail shoots of grass and a poppy—my own hidden message for those who know the poet, my namesake: a flower fallen (...) at the meadow’s edge... I had pictured myself as a pioneer composing stark, startling, northern poems as fêted (one day) as my famed forebear. Besides, I’d been priced out of Rome. Yet each word I write I later delete. I watch the starlings rising up at dusk above the teeming, cloud-fogged streets like a simile slipping out of grasp. I hear the drunken Rhenish equites chant their taproom verse, swilled in vomit our bleak reward for six months’ back pay. My voice still clogs with Londinium clay. All I am here is the house opposite the cooper, two doors from the brewer. The only lines that come, come in error and for them: barrels, bills, more calls for beer. arion 27.2 fall 2019 Catullus the Slave (Walbrook, London, 79 CE) To Catullus the slave of Romanius Faustinus: 2000 units, 65 denarii [lines struck through] —Bloomberg Writing Tablets, 70 Six months on, the ice kicked in. My page was frost-white, its lines still frozen. By the following year I had given up, sold everything— volcanic crockery to the cooper, ink-smudged glass to the brewer who was branching out to wine. When even that was not enough I sold myself to Romanius Faustinus, a scrawny Gallic works contractor (a literary man, he said, was worth more than most). I did his books. I counted bricks, tessera for mosaics shifting back into the face of Orpheus, accounts closed, nothing outstanding. I learnt silence where once I spoke— he owned the air, he owned my breath— so I mouthed the verse I used to quote, the finest Catullus (snr) had written: you pea-brain, hairy-legged hick whose farts are your best feature... And concurred re bastard Caesar: why did he ever eye up Britain, that cursed place, ugly and remote? two poems 136... (shrink)

Abstract:Natural law theory has a long history, going back to the Stoics. Ernst Bloch, a twentieth-century Marxist theorist, offered a compelling radical reconstruction of natural law, locating its source in the resistance of those whose natural law entitlements are being denied. That resistance, Bloch held, constitutes a critical standpoint, which forms the basis for radical natural law. Bloch restricted the concept to humans, but it is here proposed that animals too have critical standpoints which constitute the basis for radical natural (...) law. (shrink)

The opioid epidemic demands the development, implementation, and evaluation of innovative, research-informed practices such as diversion programs. Aritürk et al. have articulated important bioethical considerations for implementing diversion programs in resource-constrained service environments. In this commentary, we expand and advance Aritürk et al.’s discussion by discussing existing resources that can be utilized to implement diversion programs that prevent or otherwise minimize the issues of autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice identified by Aritürk et al.

As you might guess, the words goodness, truth, and beauty are not of heavy poetic value today. Terms of concept may be stressed again someday, and maybe soon, but at the moment have gone out of poetry in favor of more concreteness, more imagery, more connotative suggestion, less effect of the naming and labeling virtues, which Ezra Pound and other twentieth-century leaders have told us not to use. But actually these terms of abstract concept were lessened in major usage in (...) poetry long before the twentieth century. They had flourished in a setting of kings and courts. The love poetry, the political poetry, the philosophic poetry not only dealt directly with truth and goodness but used them constantly for evaluative commentary of other subjects. People, as well as moral issues, were good; lovers, as well as propositions, were true . . . Love and honor, good and true, these were terms of value in which poetry worked so strongly that a large proportion of its reference was limited to these alone, and so thoroughly that there was not a poet in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who did not share in this emphasis. Josephine Miles is a poet, critic, and University Professor of English at Berkeley. Her works of criticism include The Vocabulary of Poetry, The Continuity of Poetic Language, Eras and Modes in English Poetry, Style and Proportion, and Poetry and Change. She is also the author of a number of books of poems, from Lines at Intersection to Poems 1930-60, Kinds of Affection , and To All Appearances. (shrink)

Subject to the ruthless accountancy of the neoliberal university, the humanities are under increasing pressure to make a case for why they count. This article focuses on how the field of li...

Following the recent condemnation of the National Health Service charging regulations by medical colleges and the UK Faculty of Public Health, we demonstrate that through enactment of this policy, the medical profession is betraying its core ethical principles. Through dissection of the policy using Beauchamp and Childress’ framework, a disrespect for autonomy becomes evident in the operationalisation of the charging regulations, just as a disregard for confidentiality was apparent in the data sharing Memorandum of Understanding. Negative consequences of the regulations (...) are documented to highlight their importance for clinical decision makers under the principles of beneficence and non-maleficence. Exploration of the principle of justice illuminates the core differentiation between the border-bound duties of the State and borderless duties of the clinician, exposing a fundamental tension. (shrink)

The ‘body’ has remained the pivotal and essential mechanism for analysis within disability scholarship. Yet while historically conceptualized as an individual’s fundamental feature, the ‘disabled identity’ has been more recently explained as a function of ‘normalcy’ through social, cultural political, and legal discriminations against difference and deviancy. Disability studies’ established tradition of consultation with philosophical endeavour remains apparently unwilling to exploit or utilize Martin Heidegger’s understanding of ‘Being’ and interpretation of Dasein as a possible framework for unravelling the complexities of (...) contemporary discrimination and oppression of those others. This paper in tracing Heidegger’s explanation of humankind, inspired by arguments proposed by Cerbone (Int J Philos Stud 2:209–230, 2000) and in consultation with Levin (The body: classic and contemporary readings, Blackwell, Malden, 1999), Aho (2009), Malpas (Heidegger’s topology: being place, world, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2008), and Rae (Hum Stud 33:23–39, 2010) among others, will interpret the ‘embodied’ reality of ‘Being,’ of being-disabled-in-the-world as primarily involved within the practical context and structured according to impersonal, normative social norms, rather than detached, theoretical contemplation or observance. (shrink)

The UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) can, on the one hand, be considered vital for the global governance process—in the sense of urging international cooperation on the ethical, developmental, and standards aspects of lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS). On the other hand, the CCW may also embody a global trend that does not augur well for international solidarity, namely the lack of credible and comprehensive collaboration to advance global objectives of peace and security. In 2022, a majority of (...) the 125 nations that belong to the CCW requested limits on a specific type of lethal autonomous weapons: “killer robots.” Yet, most of the major global powers—namely the United States, Russia, and China—opposed not only a ban on LAWS but also on any restrictions on the development of these weapons, not least because the United States, Russia, and China are actively developing this weapons technology. While there is currently much focus on the technological evolution of LAWS, less has been written about how ethical values can exert influence on a growing global consciousness around factors such as power, technology, human judgment, accountability, autonomy, dehumanization, and the use of force. This introduction lays the groundwork for dealing with these issues. It does so by showing that all these factors warrant a pluralist approach to the global governance of LAWS, based on multiple grounds, including the military, tech, law, and distinctive theoretical-ethical orientations; the rationale being to combine this expertise into a collection for publication. Reflecting the contributing authors’ firsthand experiences of the ethics surrounding the management of LAWS to address decisive and critical questions at an expert level, it provides a framing for the collection, showing that the use of international legal mechanisms like the CCW are crucial to considering both the potential and the limits of LAWS, as well as what it can contribute to areas such as international law, human rights, and national security. (shrink)

This book is aimed at those who wish to understand more about the molecular basis of life and how life on earth may change in coming centuries. Readers of this book will gain knowledge of how life began on Earth, the natural processes that have led to the great diversity of biological organisms that exist today, recent research into the possibility of life on other planets, and how the future of life on earth faces unprecedented pressures from human-made activities. Readers (...) will obtain a perspective on the potential risks of chemical or nuclear warfare, and the ever-increasing risks from human activities that are causing pollution and climate change with global heating. Readers will also learn about ongoing research efforts to generate “designer lifeforms” through synthetic biology and applications of artificial intelligence. The book makes an integrated, up-to-date, overview of topics often considered as separate fields. It should be valuable to students, teachers, and people who are concerned about the future of life. (shrink)

Trying to obtain a medical history from a patient, I listen to her story. She’s a difficult patient, as in noncompliant, narcotic-seeking chronic-pain-in-the-ass patient. There’s a Physician’s Field Guide to the Difficult Patient, a chapter for each type. If you stop to listen, to question the words used, you may never finish this medical..

There is within all theological utterances something of the ridiculous, perhaps more so in Christianity, given its proclivity for the paradoxical and the childlike. Yet, few theologians are willing to discuss that consent to the Christian doctrine often requires a faith that goes beyond reason or does not exclusively identify with it. There seems to be a fear that the association of theology with the absurd will give fuel to the skeptic's refrain: "you can't seriously believe in all that nonsense" (...) This book considers the legitimacy of the skeptic's objection and rather than trying to explain away points of logical contradiction, the author explores the possibility that an idea can be contrary to rationality and also true and meaningful. The study involves the systematic analysis of central stylistic features of literary nonsense using Lewis Carroll's famous Alice stories as exemplar. The project culminates in the setting up of a nonsense theology by considering the practical and evangelical ramifications of associating Christian faith with nonsense literature; and conversely, the value of relating theological principles to the study of literary nonsense. Ultimately, the research suggests that faith is always a risk and that a strictly rational apologetic misrepresents the nature of Christian truth. (shrink)

The attempts of scholars and scientists to unravel the mystery of the ancestral origins of the Lemba are summarised, focusing on Tudor Parfitt's book, Journey to the Vanished City, and a study by an international group of genetic and social scientists. The impact of this research on identity questions is raised.