With over 10 000 bases of DNA being sequenced around the world per minute, it is vital that ethical discussion continues to keep pace with genetic research. This contribution by four top theorists in bioethics carefully considers the implications of the many ways genetic information will influence human health and reproduction, by considering “the most basic moral principles that would guide public policy and individual choice concerning the use of genetic interventions in a just and humane society” (4–5). Proceeding with (...) the themes of rights, justice, and harm, problems addressed by the authors include: the significance of the moral difference between treating genetic disease and altering personality characteristics; whether the utilisation of prenatal interventions to avoid disability discriminates against the disabled, and who should have control …. (shrink)

Newborn screening involves a complex logistical process, which depends on the close cooperation of many professionals, such as midwives, laboratory technicians, general practitioners and pediatricians. These professionals may encounter moral problems in the process, which have not been systematically studied before. This study fills this gap. We conducted interviews with 36 professionals involved in NBS in the Netherlands and made an inventory of the moral problems they encounter, as well as of the ways in which they tend to respond to (...) them. The moral problems professionals encounter stem from interpersonal conflicts and intrapersonal conflicts. Given the complexity of the work of NBS professionals, the study suggests that the moral problems that occur on the work floor cannot easily be solved by means of offering better or more stringent policy guidelines. Rather, it should be appreciated that professionals contribute significantly to shaping the morality of NBS with the help of their daily choices, and they should be supported in carrying out this task—for example with the help of a moral training or regular multidisciplinary moral deliberation, facilitated by an ethicist. (shrink)

Ten new essays critique the practice of armed humanitarian intervention, whereby one state sends its armed forces into another to protect citizens against major human rights abuses. The contributors examine a range of concerns, for instance about potential adverse effects and about ulterior motives.

To what extent should scientists, doctors and the community be constrained in their decision-making by a duty to posterity? How should we as a community balance our desire to benefit the present generation against the need not to irretrievably harm our successors? These questions are discussed with particular reference to genetic research and treatment that may have great potential for people suffering from genetic disease but may cause inherited changes in future generations, either deliberately or inadvertently. We conclude that the (...) community should take account of the interests of its successors but this should not immobilise us in the decisions we make for the present. (shrink)

I felt happy but a little apprehensive when I received the suggestion from the editors of Science in Context to write a comment on my book Categories of Medieval Culture quite a few years after its first publication and translation. It is always difficult to comment on one's own work, for in such a case there is seldom the necessary degree of “distance” between the author and the commentator. I offer this paper rather as a short account of the direction (...) of my thoughts. (shrink)

With the dawn of the day of the Battle of Salamis in ch. 83 of Book 8, Herodotus heightens the tone of his language. An unfortunate result of his more elaborately worked writing has been failure to understand his words, and hence much misplaced editorial intervention. In particular, the words at 8.83.1, προηγρενε εῢ Χοντα μν κ πντων Θεμιστοκλης, have regularly been mistranslated. Powell even wanted to rewrite the Greek here to read: γρευε μν πρó πντων Θεμιστοκλης . Few would (...) wish to follow such a drastic and arbitrary alteration of the transmitted text, but the conjectural emendation highlights the difficulty of understanding Herodotus' words at this point. (shrink)

‘Who wrote the scurrilous iambic poems of the first stanza?’, asks David West at the start of his commentary on the ode. ‘The culprit’, he declares, ‘must be Horace.’ This answer accords with that to be found in other commentaries: ‘my scurrilous verses’, ‘my scandalous lines’, ‘my scurrilous iambics’, ‘my abusive iambics’, ‘miei ingiuriosi giambi’, ‘my libellous iambics’, ‘my libellous iambic verses’, ‘miei giambi ingiuriosi’. What, then, are these iambic verses? Some earlier scholars suggested that Horace is referring to various (...) of his epodes, such as those addressed to Canidia ; but our knowledge of Canidia indicates that she would scarcely make plausible the accent on beauty in the first line of the ode. Most commentators, at least since the latter half of the nineteenth century, have believed that Horace is referring to some iambics which he had targeted at the ode's addressee but of which we now have no further knowledge: Kiessling and Heinze, for example, refer to ‘the satirical poems which Horace … has levelled at her’, while in the most recent commentary in 2012 Mayer says that Horace ‘assures an unnamed young woman that it rests with her to put an end to his vituperative attacks’. (shrink)