This paper argues that general skills and the varieties of subject-specific discourse are both important for teaching, learning and practising critical thinking. The former is important because it outlines the principles of good reasoning simpliciter (what constitutes sound reasoning patterns, invalid inferences, and so on). The latter is important because it outlines how the general principles are used and deployed in the service of ‘academic tribes’. Because critical thinking skills are—in part, at least—general skills, they can be applied to all (...) disciplines and subject-matter indiscriminately. General skills can help us assess reasoning independently of the vagaries of the linguistic discourse we express arguments in. The paper looks at the debate between the ‘specifists’—those who stress the importance of critical thinking understood as a subject-specific discourse—and the ‘generalists’—those that stress the importance of critical thinking understood independently of disciplinary context. The paper suggests that the ‘debate’ between the specifists and the generalists amounts to a fallacy of the false alternative, and presents a combinatory-‘infusion’ approach to critical thinking. (shrink)

I defend the thesis that most or all perceptual experiences are infused with imaginative contributions. While the idea is not new, it has few supporters. I begin by developing a framework for the underlying debate. Central to that framework is the claim that a perceptual experience is infused with imagination if and only if there are self-generated contributions to that experience that have ampliative effect on its phenomenal and directed elements. Self-generated ingredients to experience are produced by the (...) subject as opposed to being received from the world. Some form of stored content is an obvious starting point. Ampliative effects are aspects of perceptual experience that outstrip the content the senses get from the world. This conceptual framework is applied to three case studies: object-sameness and object-kind recognition (section 2), memory colour (section 3), and perceptual constancy and amodal completion (section 4). If the three cases and my overall analysis are accepted (a substantive if), then we have a forceful inductive argument for perception being infused with imagination. (shrink)

This article addresses two great global challenges of the 2020s. On one hand, the accelerating climate crisis and, on the other, the deepening crisis of representation within liberal democracies. As temperatures and water levels rise, rates of popular confidence in existing democratic institutions decline. So, what is to be done? This article discusses whether sortition – the ancient Greek practice of selecting individuals for political office through lottery – could serve to mitigate both crises simultaneously. Since the 2000s, sortition has (...) attracted growing interest among activists and academics. Recently it has been identified in countries like the UK and France as a mechanism for producing legitimate political answers to the climate challenge. However, few theoretical reflections on the potentials and perils of sortition-based climate governance have yet emerged. This article contributes to filling the gap. Based on a critique of the first successful case of sortition used to enhance national environmental policy – in Ireland in 2017–18 – we argue that sortition-based deliberation could indeed speed up meaningful climate action whilst improving the health of democratic systems. However, this positive outcome is not preordained. Success depends not only on green social movements getting behind climate sortition but also on developing flexible, context-specific designs that identify adequate solutions to a number of problems, including those of power ; expertise ; and participation. (shrink)

Despite a growing body of research by management scholars to understand and explain failures in ethical decision making (EDM), misconduct prevails. Scholars have identified character, founded in virtue ethics, as an important perspective that can help to address the gap in organizational misconduct. While character has been offered as a valid perspective in EDM, current theorizing on how it applies to EDM has not been well developed. We thus integrate character, founded in virtue ethics, into Rest’s (1986) EDM model to (...) reveal how shifting attention to the nature of the moral agent provides critical insights into decision making more broadly and EDM specifically. Virtue ethics provides a perspective on EDM that acknowledges and anticipates uncertainties, considers its contextual constraints, and contemplates the development of the moral agent. We thus answer the call by many scholars to integrate character in EDM in order to advance the understanding of the field and suggest propositions for how to move forward. We conclude with implications of a character-infused approach to EDM for future research. (shrink)

This report examines the role of 1890 land-grant institutions and Tuskegee University in international research and curriculum development. It discusses the need for internationalizing curricula and the benefits and costs for 1890 institutions. Two particular strategies for infusing global perspectives using a small land-grant university as a case-study are presented. Two international projects served as a vehicle for enhancing faculty teaching, research and service capabilities.

Two theses are proposed; regarding the future evolution of the value systems of advanced AGI systems. The Value Learning Thesis is a semi-formalized version of the idea that; if an AGI system is taught human values in an interactive and experiential way as its intelligence increases toward human level; it will likely adopt these human values in a genuine way. The Value Evolution Thesis is a semi-formalized version of the idea that if an AGI system begins with human-like values; and (...) then iteratively modifies itself; it will end up in roughly the same future states as a population of human beings engaged with progressively increasing their own intelligence. Taken together; these theses suggest a worldview in which raising young AGIs to have human-like values is a sensible thing to do; and likely to produce a future that is generally desirable in a human sense. While these two theses are far from definitively proven; I argue that they are more solid and more relevant to the actual future of AGI than Bostrom’s “Instrumental Convergence Thesis” and “Orthogonality Thesis” which are core to the basis of his argument for fearing ongoing AGI development and placing AGI R&D under strict governmental control. In the context of fleshing out this argument; previous publications and discussions by Richard Loosemore and Kaj Sotala are discussed in some detail. (shrink)

We begin at the site of borders, the demarcations between us, between: my body and your body, humans and nonhuman animals, habits of thought and institutional structures, nature and culture, subject and object. We find ourselves between the devil and the deep blue sea. Differences, distinctions, and borders are key to knowing and acting responsibly. Yet we are “held captive” by particular habits of understanding that police such borders with unbecoming fervor. We desire to trouble these borders with the aim (...) of transforming habits of thought and embodied dispositions, to give rise to new appreciations of difference through the deep, ongoing play of the in-between. Ours is an ontology of the in-between... (shrink)

Deferential Monadic Panpsychism is a view that accepts that physical science is capable of discovering the basic structure of reality. However, it denies that reality is fully and exhaustively de- scribed purely in terms of physical science. Consciousness is missing from the physical description and cannot be reduced to it. DMP explores the idea that the physically fundamental features of the world possess some intrinsic mental aspect. It thereby faces a se- vere problem of understanding how more complex mental states (...) emerge from the mental features of the fundamental features. Here I explore the idea that a new form of aggregative emergence, which I call 'combinatorial infusion', could shed light on this problem and bolster the prospects for this form of panpsychism. (shrink)

This study locates Aquinas's theory of infused and acquired virtue in his foundational understanding of nature and grace. Aquinas holds that all the virtues are bestowed on humans by God along with the gift of sanctifying grace. Since he also holds, with Aristotle, that we can create virtuous dispositions in ourselves through our own repeated good acts, a question arises: How are we to understand the relationship between the virtues God infuses at the moment of grace and virtues that (...) are gradually acquired over time? In this important book, Angela McKay Knobel provides a detailed examination of Aquinas's theory of infused moral virtue, with special attention to the question of how the infused and acquired moral virtues are related. Part 1 examines Aquinas's own explicit remarks about the infused and acquired virtues and considers whether and to what extent a coherent "theory" of the relationship between the infused and acquired virtues can be found in Aquinas. Knobel argues that while Aquinas says almost nothing about how the infused and acquired virtues are related, he clearly does believe that the "structure" of the infused virtues mirrors that of the acquired in important ways. Part 2 uses that structure to evaluate existing interpretations of Aquinas and argues that no existing account adequately captures Aquinas's most fundamental commitments. Knobel ultimately argues that the correct account lies somewhere between the two most commonly advocated theories. Written primarily for students and scholars of moral philosophy and theology, the book will also appeal to readers interested in understanding Aquinas's theory of virtue. (shrink)

De réchauffement climatique en scandale sanitaire et d’OGM en catastrophe nucléaire, la science et la technique sont devenues des questions pleinement politiques, tandis que la « technoscience » vient interroger les concepts moraux les mieux ancrés. Pourtant, ce qui devrait susciter un intérêt soutenu ne génère souvent que la résignation de « n’y rien comprendre » - ce qui laisse le champ libre aux lobbies de la technologie et aux bluffs scientifiques les plus éhontés. Qu’y puis-je, direz-vous, si la science (...) m’a toujours été présentée comme rébarbative et « chiantifique », et si la parole des experts, même de mauvaise foi, couvre la mienne quand je tente de m’exprimer à ce sujet? Et puis, cela me concerne-t-il vraiment? Un seul remède : se plonger dans ce dictionnaire, qui vise moins à « faire passer » de l’information qu’à donner les outils nécessaires pour dégonfler les prétentions excessives de la technoscience. De « abeille » à « zz » en passant par « sérendipité » et « post-humanisme », c’est tout le domaine de la science et de la technologie qui se révèle non seulement comme digne d’être exploré mais aussi comme susceptible d’être squatté efficacement : les théories les plus décoiffantes, les idées les moins convenues et les personnages les plus inattendus font de ce domaine un incomparable tremplin pour l’imagination, et incitent à pénétrer sans crainte dans ce que tant d’autres aimeraient continuer à considérer comme une chasse gardée. (shrink)

Human desire usually has an object of longing or hope. The more intense the desire, the more singularly prominent its object. Sides, after all, means “heavenly body.” When people desire, they want, crave, and even covet the desired, whether the desired is ice cream, a professorship, or another’s body. What is intensely desired, even if it is not heavenly, has the status of an object with exceptional and immediate meaning and draw. When simple desire finds satisfaction, the desired’s attraction withers (...) in its completeness, and the object fades into the ordinary environment, not unlike the disinterest we experience after we have overindulged in Chunky Monkey or the indifference to the.. (shrink)

This article is the first in a series that looks at the technological transformation of Des Moines Public Schools (DMPS). It concentrates on the costs, some financial but mostly human and organizational, that are emerging as the district begins to implement its plans for dramatically increasing computer technology use. The conclusion reached here is that not only ave the costs been greatly underestimated, they may even force a gradual shift of control over the learning environment.

Thomas Aquinas inherits two distinct conceptions of the virtuous human being. From Aristotle, he receives a vision of harmony and human achievement: through the process of habituation, the distinct parts of the virtuous soul are operating as one under the guidance of reason. From Augustine, Aquinas receives a vision of moral struggle and victory through divine assistance: the virtuous person is able to resist the inclinations of the flesh through virtues that are given by God and only fully actualized in (...) the next life. This dissertation explores an underappreciated area of Aquinas’s thought—on the topic of growth in the infused virtues—where he brings these teachings of Aristotle and Augustine into a brilliant harmony. In order to fully understand and appreciate Aquinas’s teaching on growth in infused virtue, one must first understand the essence of the infused virtues and their increase. This is the goal of Chapters Two and Three. In Chapter Two, I explore Aquinas’s discussion of habits in the Summa Theologiae by tracing three important topics: the essence of habits, the cause of habits, and the increase of habits. In Chapter Three, I elucidate Aquinas’s teaching on the essence of the infused virtues and situate these important virtues within his picture of the flourishing human life. The fourth chapter lays out Aquinas’s teaching on growth in infused virtue. I develop a metaphysical account of increase in infused virtue and pay careful attention to the associated stages. The chapter concludes with a close examination of the important imperfections that Aquinas associates with the infused virtues. I demonstrate that growth in infused virtue—rather than the development of the acquired virtues —is an effective remedy for these imperfections. In the concluding chapter, I emphasize the ways in which Aquinas’s understanding of growth in infused virtue represents the deepest point of his harmony of Aristotle and Augustine. I also situate my project among two prominent interpretive trends in Thomistic literature and highlight two important implications of the project. (shrink)

BACKGROUND: Through their action on the locus coeruleus, ␣ 2-adrenoceptor agonists induce rapidly reversible sedation while partially preserving cognitive brain functions. Our goal in this observational study was to map brain regions whose activity is modified by clonidine infusion so as to better understand its loci of action, especially in relation to sedation. METHODS: Six ASA I–II right-handed volunteers were recruited. Electroencephalogram (EEG) was monitored continuously. After a baseline H215O activation scan, clonidine infusion was started at a rate ranging from (...) 6 to 10 ␮g ⅐ kgϪ1 ⅐ h Ϫ1. A sequence of 11 similar scans was then performed at 8 min intervals. Plasma clonidine concentration was measured. Using statistical parametric mapping, we sought linear correlations between normalized regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF), an indicator of regional brain activity, and plasma clonidine concentration or spindle EEG activity. RESULTS: Clonidine induced clinical sedation and EEG patterns (spindles) comparable to early stage nonrapid eye movement sleep. A significant negative linear correlation between clonidine concentration and rCBF or spindle activity was observed in the thalamus, prefrontal, orbital and parietal association cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and precuneus. CONCLUSIONS: The EEG patterns and decreases in rCBF of specific brain regions observed during clonidine-induced sedation are similar to those of early stage nonrapid eye movement sleep. Patterns of deactivated brain regions are also comparable to those observed during general anesthesia or vegetative state, reinforcing the hypothesis that alterations in the activity of a common network occur during these modified conscious states. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aquinas and the Infused Moral Virtues by Angela McKay KnobelThomas M. Osborne Jr.KNOBEL, Angela McKay. Aquinas and the Infused Moral Virtues. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2021. 214 pp. Cloth, $65.00This book is the first substantial English monograph on Aquinas's account of the infused virtues in many years, and the most significant treatment of the issue since Gabriel Bullet, Vertus morales infuses (...) et vertus morales acquises selon Saint Thomas d'Aquin (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires, 1958). The infused virtues are about, or they are intrinsically ordered to, the supernatural end of human beings. Aquinas was among the first to argue that the infused virtues include not only the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, but also supernatural counterparts to the acquired virtues, which are proportionate to the natural end of humans. These infused moral virtues are infused with charity and lost with mortal sin. Aquinas never addressed at length the relationship between acquired [End Page 144] and infused moral virtues, and many theologians rejected Aquinas's position that there are infused moral virtues.Knobel's book has two parts. The first part of the book consists of three chapters about Aquinas's own views. Chapter 1 is on natural virtue, which can be acquired through the agent's own efforts. Knobel emphasizes the way in which this virtue is proportionate to the natural end and abilities of humans. She correctly notes that Aquinas thinks that humans can perform such virtuous acts without grace. However, since she does not distinguish between morally good acts and morally good agents, she does not adequately address Aquinas's view of how sinners without grace might possess acquired virtue. Additionally, although she correctly notes the way in which moral virtue orders the agent to the end, it is often unclear whether she is discussing the proximate end of the will (which is an object), a further end (as when someone steals to commit adultery), or the ultimate end (which is God as the object of charity or the self as an object of disordered love). For example, she writes, "[I]f an act is not sinful, it cannot be ordered to an evil end." She might be making the uncontroversial claim that good acts are made evil when directed to a bad end, but in her argument she seems to be making the stronger claim that someone with a disordered ultimate end cannot habitually order good acts to such an end.Chapter 2 is on the infused virtues. Knobel notes that for Aquinas synderesis, which is a habit of grasping first practical principles, is a seed of the natural virtues, and that faith, which grasps revealed principles, plays this role in infused virtue. She shows how infused moral virtues, which share the same matter as the acquired moral virtues, have different ends and rules than the acquired virtues. Chapter 3 concerns Aquinas's account of the relationship between the acquired and infused virtues, and in particular the infused moral virtues. Knobel draws attention to texts in which Aquinas argues that the two coexist in someone who has grace, but she states that this coexistence is contradicted in the discussion of Macrobius's fourfold division of virtue in the Summa Theologiae (I-II, q. 61, a. 5). In this article, she thinks, acquired virtue is political virtue, and a stage toward infused virtue. She does not address how Aquinas uses the term "political virtue" differently in different texts, and how the schema of four virtues in this text might be read as describing both four stages of acquired virtue and four stages of infused virtue. Knobel supports her view—that those with grace lack acquired virtue—by claiming that Aquinas consistently states that there is no acquired virtue in heaven. This view only tenuously (at best) supports her point that acquired virtue does not exist in this life among those in a state of grace. Moreover, Aquinas seems to suggest that acquired virtue persists in the next life in ST I-II, q. 67, a. 1-2.The second part of the book is a criticism of contemporary interpretations of Aquinas, and an exposition of... (shrink)

Civic engagement in the form of social and moral awareness projects has grown in popularity among higher education practitioners in the past decades, and even more among business schools as a response to the many embarrassingly self-centered business CEO acts in recent years. Research thus far shows a wide variety of advantages tied to social and moral awareness projects, varying from greater understanding of students about the needs in society, and improved connections between the sponsoring institution and the community, to (...) more focus in students’ selection of future careers, and greater personal and professional emotional intelligence levels among these students. This article reviews the achievements of 156 undergraduate and graduate business students in regards to their social and moral responsibility projects, and the preferences they displayed in selecting the topics of these projects. (shrink)

We investigate the impact of corporate governance (CG) on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance in the textile industry in developing countries, taking into account the moderating role of technological innovation (TI). Based on institutional theory, we investigated the connection between CG, TI, and ESG performance. The study used secondary data from 197 textile firms in West Africa from 2010 to 2022. Our findings revealed a positive relationship between gender diversity and ESG performance. Similarly, a positive relationship was found between (...) board independence and ESG performance. Contrarily, an inverse connection was found between board size and ESG performance, as well as CEO duality and ESG performance. The study adds to the academic literature on CG and ESG performance by emphasizing the necessity of balancing economic development with social responsibility and environmental preservation. In addition, the study highlights the need to stimulate technological innovation and create an effective governance structure conducive to implementing firms' ecological responsibilities. Lastly, policymakers can adopt the integrated ESG index in measuring firms' sustainability performance across all sectors and regions. (shrink)

Although it is well known that Aquinas holds that infused versions of prudence and the other acquired virtues are bestowed on man along with habitual grace, there is no uniform and widely accepted account of how the infused and acquired virtues are related: some scholars interpret Aquinas to mean that the acquired virtues are ‘taken up’ into the infused virtues, while others credit him with the view that the infused and acquired virtues somehow coexist. This paper (...) explores one common way of maintaining that the Christian’s infused and acquired virtues ‘coexist’. I argue that while such an interpretation is able to accommodate some of Aquinas’s most fundamental claims about the infused and acquired virtues, it is also problematic in important respects. (shrink)

This paper articulates an infusion model of ethics education for engineering students by illuminating the value of a religious studies course on yoga. This model is distinguished from four other possible approaches that have traditionally been used to prepare engineering students to face the challenges of the work place. The article is not claiming that this approach should be used to the exclusion of the other approaches, but rather that it adds strength to the other approaches. Specifically, the article claims (...) that the infusion model provides an opportunity for students to reflect upon the foundational ethical positions emanating from the world’s religions and thereby provides them with a vista from which they can not only ask what professional ethical code applies in a given situation, but also ponder the nature of character needed to follow that ethical code. (shrink)

This article poses a challenge to contemporary theories in psychology that portray empathy as a negative force in the moral life. Instead, drawing on alternative psychological and philosophical literature, especially Martha Nussbaum, I argue that empathy is related to the virtue of compassion and therefore crucial for moral action. Evidence for evolutionary anthropological accounts of compassion in early hominins provides additional arguments for its positive value in deep human history. I discuss this work alongside Thomistic notions of practical wisdom, compassion, (...) misericordia, and the importance of reason in the moral life. The tension between “bottom up” accounts of empathy and that according to a theological interpretation of “infused” virtues also needs to be addressed. From a secular perspective, infused virtue is a projection of the ideal moral life, but from a theological perspective, it is a way of understanding how human capacities through the action of grace can reach beyond what seem to be the limits of psychological moral identity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"An Encyclopedic Pico della Mirandola"?Rethinking Aquinas on Christ's Infused KnowledgeJoshua H. LimIntroductionIn what has come to be known as Thomas's account of the triple knowledge of Christ, the infused knowledge holds a tenuous place. It stands awkwardly between two kinds of knowledge, beatific and acquired, which are explicitly linked to the fulfillment of Christ's redemptive mission.1 Christ's earthly [End Page 147] beatific knowledge, controverted though it may (...) be, nevertheless has for Thomas a definite soteriological end.2 As the author of salvation, Christ, from the moment of conception, had to possess in actu the very knowledge to which he was to lead the rest of humanity, namely, the supernatural and beatific knowledge of the divine essence and of all things in it. Christ's acquired knowledge is also ordered to our salvation; it is necessary on account of exigencies arising from the integrity of human nature. In the assumption of a complete human nature, it was necessary for Christ to possess acquired knowledge, for without an agent intellect having its proper operation (i.e., abstracting intelligible species from phantasms arising from the senses), Christ's humanity would have been incomplete, imperfect.3 Thus, according to the patristic dictum that what is not assumed is not redeemed, Christ's redemption of human nature would have been imperfect. In contrast to these two types of knowledge, it is not clear whether and how the infused knowledge contributes to human salvation. Unlike the beatific knowledge, the infused knowledge does not belong intrinsically to the state of the comprehensor, for beatitude does not consist in a knowledge of created things in themselves, but in God;4 and unlike the acquired knowledge, the infused knowledge is not necessary for the assumption of an integral human nature.5 Add to this Thomas's passing description of Christ's infused knowledge as "proportioned to the angelic nature," encompassing all intelligible species of things knowable through nature and through the light of grace. In this vein, the infused knowledge threatens to transform Christ into a caricature of a man—turning Christ into what É. H. Wéber has disparagingly called an "encyclopedic Pico della Mirandola."6 [End Page 148]Herein lies the problem. Given the acquired and beatific knowledge, what use is there for the infused knowledge? The knowledge of all that can be known by nature is already attributed to Christ through his acquired knowledge; further, the knowledge of all the mysteries of grace is accessible to Christ through his beatific knowledge of God and all things in Verbo. While humans, as viatores, gain knowledge through the senses, and, as comprehensores, behold God through an elevation of the soul through glory, it is unclear whether a third kind of knowledge, the infused knowledge, is necessary and, if so, to what end. If, according to the Scholastic dictum, God and nature do nothing in vain, what sense can be made of Christ's infused knowledge?At least since the seventeenth century, Thomists have typically sought to resolve this tension by appealing to the unique role of infused knowledge in Christ's earthly transmission of knowledge. Thus, the infused knowledge fills a gap between the beatific and acquired modes of knowing, providing Christ's soul with a mode of knowledge which enables him to communicate supernatural truths, the mysteria gratiae,7 otherwise known in the blessed vision of the Word, through created and, therefore, humanly communicable intelligible species. Christ's acquired knowledge, restricted to what is naturally knowable, is insufficient to lead "many brothers to glory,'" while the beatific knowledge, though saving, nevertheless remains unconceptualizable and therefore incommunicable in mode.8 According to this view, therefore, the necessity of the infused knowledge arises as a bridge of continuity between the beatific and acquired knowledge, enabling Christ to communicate the truth of the kingdom of God in a way that is proportioned to the human nature in via.Such an account has two clear points in its favor. First, by highlighting the gulf between the beatific and acquired modes of knowledge, it makes room for a distinct, third mode of knowledge. Second, and related to the first point, by accounting for the... (shrink)

How should we conceive the interplay of nature and grace in Christian ethical life when it comes to the virtues? How did Thomas Aquinas conceive it? For Thomas, grace-given, infused moral virtues can use virtues acquired by habituation, ‘commanding’ their own proper act with its distinct, subordinate proper end and ‘referring’ or ‘mediating’ that act to beatitude. These diverse species of virtue effect distinct movements of will, practical reason, and passion answering to our distinct reasons for acting and the (...) complex relations between those reasons. The role a virtue plays in our lives is distinct from what it produces in the world. This article elucidates, defends, and illustrates this vision, showing how it coheres with and illumines ethical life and why Thomas endorsed it, answering opponents who claim infused virtues replace acquired virtues, in fact or function, and showing non-specialists what is at stake in this debate. (shrink)

Are the actions of a person operating out of the gifts of the Holy Spirit the same as the actions of that person operating out of infused virtue? Answering this question provides an opportunity to offer a Thomistic account of how the gifts of the Holy Spirit are distinct from, yet related to, the infused virtues. This article begins with two recent arguments for how the gifts differ from the infused virtues. It then rejects those arguments based (...) on Aquinas's mature writing on the gifts. The following section offers an account of the role of the gifts in the graced life of discipleship, including their relationship to the infused virtues, through a focus on the relationship between habit and act. The article concludes with three areas for further research and a nod toward pastoral application of this argument in sacramental preparation for confirmation. (shrink)

In the Secunda secundae of his masterwork, the Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas contends that reverence (an affection elicited by the gift of fear) is both the principle and cause of humility (an infused moral virtue). He suggests also that the relationship between fear and humility is emblematic of the relationship between the gifts of the Holy Spirit and infused virtues as such. This article examines these claims and explores their implications for understanding the contribution of the gifts to (...) the infused virtues’ growth: as the theological virtues grow, the infused moral and intellectual virtues grow with them; yet this happens by the intermediate growth of the gifts. Although uncharted within the landscape of contemporary Aquinas studies, these claims are plainly attested in the Summa and corroborated by the Literal Exposition of Job and the Commentary on John. (shrink)

Can transfusions of blood plasma slow down ageing or even rejuvenate people? Recent preclinical studies and experimental tests inspired by the technique known as parabiosis have aroused great media attention, although for now there is no clear evidence of their effectiveness. This line of research and the interest it is triggering testify to the prominent role played by the idea of combating the “natural” ageing process in the scientific and social agenda. While seeking to increase the duration of healthy living (...) time may be considered a duty, it also raises ethical questions about how to pursue this goal. Specifically, therapies and techniques accessible only to a fraction of the population seem destined to exponentially increase social inequality and to produce undesirable consequences. In this article we address the issue precisely in the light of the prospected use of plasma for the rejuvenation of a small elite of people. (shrink)