Behavioral engagement is a key determinant of students’ learning. Hence, knowledge about mechanisms affecting engagement is crucial for educators and stakeholders. Self-determination theory offers a framework to understand one of these mechanisms. However, extant studies mostly consider only parts of SDT’s theoretical paths from basic psychological need satisfaction via regulations to student engagement. Studies that investigate the full model are rare, especially in mathematics, and results are inconclusive. Moreover, constructs are often merged in ways that may preclude detailed understanding. In (...) this study, we used structural equation modeling to test several hypothesized paths between the individual variables that make up higher-order constructs of need satisfaction, regulations, and behavioral engagement. Satisfaction of the need for competence had a dominating effect on engagement, both directly and via identified regulation. Similarly, satisfaction of the need for relatedness predicted identified regulation, that in turn predicted engagement. Satisfaction of the need for autonomy predicted intrinsic regulation as expected but, in contrast to theory, was also positively associated with controlled motivation. Neither intrinsic nor controlled regulation predicted engagement. Theoretical and method-related reasons for this unexpected pattern are discussed, as well as implications for research and teaching. (shrink)

miembro del Future of Humanity Institute de la Universidad de Oxford y experto en mejoramiento humano y transhumanismo, sobre cuestiones centrales de su labor investigadora.PALABRAS CLAVETRANSHUMANISMO, MEJORAMIENTO HUMANO, ANDERS SANDBERG, BIOTECNOLOGÍAABSTRACTInterview with Anders Sandberg, member of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University and expert in human enhancement and transhumanism, about central topics in his works.KEYWORDSTRANSHUMANISM, HUMAN ENHANCEMENT, ANDERS SANDBERG,BIOTECHNOLOGY.

Berg, J. Buñuels dagdröm.--Bergström, L. Pessimismens konsekvenser.--Furberg, M. Möjliga teser hos Johannes Climacus.--Halldén, S. Teckenrelationen och språkreglernas juridik.--Hedenius, I. Ett argument mot den rättsfilosofiska domstolsrealismen.--Mates, B. Om Platons argument "den tredje människan."--Marc-Wogau, K. Kant om lögnen.--Næss, A. Om filosofiske projekter som forener empirisk semantikk og metafysisk spekulasjon.--Ofstad, H. Får nazister lettere magesår enn humanister?--Prawitz, D. Om moraliska och logiska satsers sanning.--Stenius, E. Om Descartes' psykofysiska modell.--Tranøy, K. E. Filosofenes etiske ansvar.--Wright, G. H. von. En filosof ser på filosofien.

A wide range of gene knockout experiments shows that functional stability is an important feature of biological systems. On this backdrop, we present an argument for higher‐level causation based on counterfactual dependence. Furthermore, we sketch a metaphysical picture providing resources to explain the metaphysical nature of functional stability, higher‐level causation, and the relevant notion of levels. Our account aims to clarify the role empirical results and philosophical assumptions should play in debates about reductionism and higher‐level causation. It thereby contributes to (...) the development of a philosophical foundation for systems biology. †To contact the authors, please write to: CSMN/IFIKK, University of Oslo, Box 1020 Blindern, N‐0315, Oslo, Norway; e‐mail: anders[email protected] , [email protected]. (shrink)

How should one understand comparisons in which neither of two alternatives is at least as good as the other? Much recent literature on comparability problems focuses on what the appropriate explanation of the phenomenon is. Is it due to vagueness or the possibility of non-conventional comparative relations such as parity? This paper argues that the discussions on how to best explain comparability problems has reached an impasse at which it is hard to make any progress. To advance the discussion we (...) suggest a new classification of comparability problems that focuses on the problems they cause for practical reasoning. (shrink)

Much research aimed at developing measures for normative criteria to guide the assessment of healthcare resource allocation decisions has focused on health maximization, equity concerns and more recently approaches based on health capabilities. However, a widely embraced idea is that health resources should be allocated to meet health needs. Little attention has been given to the principle of need which is often mentioned as an alternative independent criteria that could be used to guide healthcare evaluations. This paper develops a model (...) and indicator of need satisfaction that aggregates the health needs of a population in a particular time period into a single measure that weights individual health needs by the severity of their ill health. The paper provides a first step towards formalizing the principle of need as a measurable objective for healthcare policy and we discuss some challenges for future research, including incorporating the duration of time into need-based health evaluations. (shrink)

Many philosophers hold that the phenomenology of thinking (also known as cognitive phenomenology) reduces to the phenomenology of the speech, sensory imagery, emotions or feelings associated with it. But even if this reductionist claim is correct, there is still a properly cognitive dimension to the phenomenology of at least some thinking. Specifically, conceptual content makes a constitutive contribution to the phenomenology of at least some thought episodes, in that it constitutes what I call their thematic unity. Often, when a thought (...) episode has a phenomenal character, the various associated speech, sensory imagery, emotions or feelings are often organized around a common theme, constituted by the conceptual content of one's thinking. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that sentences containing a non-denoting description embedded in the scope of a propositional attitude verb have true de dicto interpretations, and Russell's (1905) analysis of definite descriptions is often praised for its simple analysis of such cases, cf. e.g. Neale (1990). However, several people, incl. Elbourne (2005, 2009), Heim (1991), and Kripke (2005), have contested this by arguing that Russell's analysis yields incorrect predictions in non-doxastic attitude contexts. Heim and Elbourne have subsequently argued that once certain (...) facts about presupposition projection are fully appreciated, the Frege/Strawson analysis of definite descriptions has an explanatory advantage. In this paper, I argue that both Russell's analysis and the Frege/Strawson analysis face a serious problem when it comes to the interaction of attitude verbs and definite descriptions. I argue that the problem observed by Elbourne, Heim, and Kripke is much more general than standardly assumed and that a solution requires a revision of the semantics of definite and indefinite descriptions. I outline the conditions that are required to solve the problem and present an analysis couched in dynamic semantics which can provide a solution. I conclude by discussing some further issues related to propositional attitude verbs that complicate a fully general solution to the problem. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that sufficientarian principles are indispensable in the set of principles that have bearing on issues in distributive ethics. I provide two arguments in favor of this claim. First, I argue that sufficientarianism is the only framework that allows us to appropriately analyze what sort of obligations we have toward individuals who are badly off due to their own faults and choices. Second, I argue that sufficientarianism is the only theory that provides an adequate framework for (...) thinking about the desperately badly off. (shrink)

‘Language and End Time’ is a translation of Sections I, IV and V of ‘Sprache und Endzeit’, a substantial essay by Günther Anders that was published in eight instalments in the Austrian journal FORVM from 1989 to 1991 (the full essay consists of 38 sections). The original essay was planned for inclusion in the third (unrealised) volume of The Obsolescence of Human Beings. ‘Language and End Time’ builds on the diagnosis of ‘our blindness toward the apocalypse’ that was advanced (...) in the first volume of The Obsolescence in 1956. The essay asks if there is a language that is capable of making us fully comprehend the looming ‘man-made apocalypse’. In response to this, it offers a critique of philosophical jargon and of the putatively ‘objective’ language of (nuclear) science, which are both dismissed as unsuitable. Sections I, IV and V introduce this core problematic. The selection of this text for inclusion in this special journal issue responds to present-day realities that inscribe Anders’s reflections on nuclear science and the nuclear situation into new contexts. The critique that ‘Language and End Time’ advances resonates with the way in which the (undemocratic) decisions of a few companies and individuals are shaping the future of life on earth. At the same time, the wider stakes of Anders’s turn against the language employed by (weapons) scientists are newly laid bare by the realities and politics of climate change and fake news. In this new context, the language of science is all too readily dismissed as if it were a mere idiom that can be ignored without consequence. It is against the backdrop of a future that is, if anything, more uncertain than at the time of Anders’s writing, that the essay’s reflections on popularisation, the limits of language and the nature of truth gain added significance. (shrink)

In the twenty-second series of The Logic of Sense, Gilles Deleuze references a remarkable essay by Günther (Stern) Anders. Anders’ essay, translated here as ‘The Pathology of Freedom’, addresses the sickness and health of our negotiation with the negative anthropological condition of ‘not being cut out for the world’.

Anders, Rudi They dance in view, they dance in secret. And yet they dance together...

It has been reported as an ethical problem within prehospital emergency care that ambulance professionals administer physiologically futile cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to patients having suffered cardiac arrest to benefit significant others. At the same time it is argued that, under certain circumstances, this is an acceptable moral practice by signalling that everything possible has been done, and enabling the grief of significant others to be properly addressed. Even more general moral reasons have been used to morally legitimize the use of (...) futile CPR: That significant others are a type of patient with medical or care needs that should be addressed, that the interest of significant others should be weighed into what to do and given an equal standing together with patient interests, and that significant others could be benefited by care professionals unless it goes against the explicit wants of the patient. In this article we explore these arguments and argue that the support for providing physiologically futile CPR in the prehospital context fails. Instead, the strategy of ambulance professionals in the case of a sudden death should be to focus on the relevant care needs of the significant others and provide support, arrange for a peaceful environment and administer acute grief counselling at the scene, which might call for a developed competency within this field. (shrink)

Understanding how individual agency and group agency relate is of great importance for a range of philosophical and practical concerns, including responsibility ascription and institutional design. This article discusses the relation between corporate and individual responsibility in agency—in particular, the relation between corporate and individual control of actions. First, I criticize Christian List and Philip Pettit’s causal account of combined corporate and individual control. Second, I develop an alternative account in terms of structural control, and I show how this gives (...) a better grasp of the issue. Third, I argue for an act-dualism that complements my account of control and sheds further light on the relation between corporate and individual agency and responsibility. (shrink)

BackgroundEthical problems in everyday healthcare work emerge for many reasons and constitute threats to ethical values. If these threats are not managed appropriately, there is a risk that the patient may be inflicted with moral harm or injury, while healthcare professionals are at risk of feeling moral distress. Therefore, it is essential to support the learning and development of ethical competencies among healthcare professionals and students. The aim of this study was to explore the available literature regarding ethics education that (...) promotes ethical competence learning for healthcare professionals and students undergoing training in healthcare professions.MethodsIn this integrative systematic review, literature was searched within the PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycInfo databases using the search terms ‘health personnel’, ‘students’, ‘ethics’, ‘moral’, ‘simulation’, and ‘teaching’. In total, 40 articles were selected for review. These articles included professionals from various healthcare professions and students who trained in these professions as subjects. The articles described participation in various forms of ethics education. Data were extracted and synthesised using thematic analysis.ResultsThe review identified the need for support to make ethical competence learning possible, which in the long run was considered to promote the ability to manage ethical problems. Ethical competence learning was found to be helpful to healthcare professionals and students in drawing attention to ethical problems that they were not previously aware of. Dealing with ethical problems is primarily about reasoning about what is right and in the patient’s best interests, along with making decisions about what needs to be done in a specific situation.ConclusionsThe review identified different designs and course content for ethics education to support ethical competence learning. The findings could be used to develop healthcare professionals’ and students’ readiness and capabilities to recognise as well as to respond appropriately to ethically problematic work situations. (shrink)

Background Working as an ambulance nurse involves facing ethically problematic situations with multi-dimensional suffering, requiring the ability to create a trustful relationship. This entails a need to be clinically trained in order to identify ethical conflicts. Aim To describe ethical conflicts in patient relationships as experienced by ambulance nursing students during clinical studies. Research design An exploratory and interpretative design was used to inductively analyse textual data from examinations in clinical placement courses. Participants The 69 participants attended a 1-year educational (...) programme for ambulance nurses at a Swedish university. Ethical considerations The research was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Participants gave voluntary informed consent for this study. Findings The students encountered ethical conflicts in patient relationships when they had inadequate access to the patient’s narrative. Doubts regarding patient autonomy were due to uncertainty regarding the patient’s decision-making ability, which forced students to handle patient autonomy. Conflicting assessments of the patient’s best interest added to the conflicts and also meant a disruption in patient focus. The absence of trustful relationships reinforced the ethical conflicts, together with an inadequacy in meeting different needs, which limited the possibility of providing proper care. Discussion Contextual circumstances add complexity to ethical conflicts regarding patient autonomy, dependency and the patient’s best interest. Students felt they were fluctuating between paternalism and letting the patient choose, and were challenged by considerations regarding the patient’s communication and decision-making ability, the views of third parties, and the need for prioritisation. Conclusion The essence of the patient relationship is a struggle to preserve autonomy while focusing on the patient’s best interest. Hence, there is a need for education and training that promotes ethical knowledge and ethical reflection focusing on the core nursing and caring values of trust and autonomy, particularly in situations that affect the patient’s decision-making ability. (shrink)

Biographical note: Christina Ada Anders, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel.

This article offers a discussion of the connection between technology and values and, specifically, I take a closer look at ethically sound design. In order to bring the discussion into a concrete context, the theory of Value Sensitive Design (VSD) will be the focus point. To illustrate my argument concerning design ethics, the discussion involves a case study of an augmented window, designed by the VSD Research Lab, which has turned out to be a potentially surveillance-enabling technology. I call attention (...) to a “positivist problem” that has to do with the connection between the design context and the use context, which VSD seems to presuppose, and I argue that it is necessary to clearly distinguish between the two, since the designers’ intentions do not always correspond with the users’ practice; in fact, the relation between design and use is very complex and principally unpredictable. Thus, a design theory must accept that foresight is limited to anticipation rather than prediction. To overcome the positivist problem, I suggest a phenomenological approach to technology inspired by Don Ihde’s concept of multistability. This argument, which is general in nature and thus applies to any theory of design ethics, is intended as a constructive criticism, which can hopefully contribute to the further development of design ethics. (shrink)

This paper argues that accepting incommensurability can be a useful step for developing attractive hybrid theories to how to distribute scarce health-related resources. If one provides opportunity for distributive options to be incommensurable with respect to substantive criteria, one can hold on to substantive criteria while also providing room for decision processes to play a significant role. The paper also argues that the strategy of accepting incommensurability is preferable to the strategy of having substantive criteria establish sets of options that (...) are equally, explains why incommensurability gives us reason to go hybrid, and argues that reasons grounded in decision processes have properties that make them appropriate as “tiebreakers” in choice situations characterized by incommensurability. (shrink)

Anders Pettersson presents a comprehensive account of the foundations of literature, grounded in an original analysis of the interactions between author and reader. Drawing on post-Gricean pragmatics and Nicholas Wolterstorff's notion of presentationality, Pettersson develops the idea of the verbal text and conveys an integrated and nuanced understanding of literary experience, its conditions, and the values it affords. In the second part of Verbal Art he systematically examines the cognitive, affective, and formal aspects of the literary work and explores (...) their interrelations.Pettersson demonstrates the implications and applications of the theory through a series of detailed studies of literary works, taking care to show that his theory is compatible with a broad variety of perspectives. Combining an intimate knowledge of modern literary theory and the aesthetics of literature with innovative applications of linguistics and cognitive psychology to the literary work, he provides a thorough treatment of fundamental problems in the area, including the concept of a text or work, the concept of form, and the distinctiveness of the literary use of language. (shrink)

The principle of need—the idea that resources should be allocated according to need—is often invoked in priority setting in the health care sector. In this article, I argue that a reasonable principle of need must be indeterminate, and examine three different ways that this can be dealt with: appendicizing the principle with further principles, imposing determinacy, or empowering decision makers. I argue that need must be conceptualized as a composite property composed of at least two factors: health shortfall and capacity (...) to benefit. When one examines how the different factors relate to each other, one discovers that this is sometimes indeterminate. I illustrate this indeterminacy in this article by applying the small improvement argument. If the relation between the factors are always determinate, the comparative relation changes by a small adjustment. Yet, if two needs are dissimilar but of seemingly equal magnitude, the comparative relation does not change by a small adjustment of one of the factors. I then outline arguments in favor of each of the three strategies for dealing with indeterminacy, but also point out that all strategies have significant shortcomings. More research is needed concerning how to deal with this indeterminacy, and the most promising path seems to be to scrutinize the position of the principle of need among a plurality of relevant principles for priority setting in the health care sector. (shrink)

This paper argues that cost-effectiveness analysis in the healthcare sector introduces a discrimination risk that has thus far been underappreciated and outlines some approaches one can take toward this. It is argued that appropriate standards used in cost-effectiveness analysis in the healthcare sector fail to always fully determine an optimal option, which entails that cost-effectiveness analysis often leaves decision makers with large sets of permissible options. Larger sets of permissible options increase the role of decision makers’ biases, whims, and prejudices, (...) which means that the discrimination risk increases. Two ways of mitigating this are identified: tinkering with standards used in the cost-effectiveness analysis and outlining anti-discrimination guidelines for decision makers. (shrink)

A notorious problem that has recently received increased attention in axiology, normative theory and population ethics is the apparent ubiquity of what can be generally called nondeterminacy. This paper illustrates how nondeterminacy can spawn cyclical rankings. So, accepting that practical reasons can admit of nondeterminacy challenges the widely held idea that ‘better than’ is transitive. As a result, standard approaches to rational choice under nondeterminacy fail to be action-guiding, since in some situations all options are dominated, that is, impermissible according (...) to standard rational choice criteria. (shrink)

The discretionary powers of welfare state professionals are in tension with the requirements of the democratic Rechtsstaat. Extensive use of discretion can threaten the principles of the rule of law and relinquish democratic control over the implementation of laws and policies. These two tensions are in principle ineradicable. But does this also mean that they are impossible to come to grips with? Are there measures that may ease these tensions? We introduce an understanding of discretion that adds an epistemic dimension (...) (discretion as a mode of reasoning) to the common structural understanding of discretion (an area of judgment and decision). Accordingly we distinguish between structural and epistemic measures of accountability. The aim of the former is to constrain discretionary spaces or the behaviour within them while the aim of the latter is to improve the quality of discretionary reasoning. The focus in this article is on epistemic measures that are internally related to the main characteristic of accountability, namely justified use of discretionary power. (shrink)

In _Plato on Democracy and Political technē_ Anders Dahl Sørensen offers an in-depth investigation of Plato’s discussions of democracy’s ‘epistemic potential’, arguing that this question is far more central to his political thought than is usually assumed.

This article analyzes approaches to nondeterminacy that suggest that one can make justified choices when primary criteria fail to fully determine a best alternative by introducing a secondary criterion. It is shown that these approaches risk violating Basic Contraction Consistency. Some ways of adjusting two-step models in order to protect against this are addressed, and it is suggested that proponents of two-step models should adopt formal conditions which qualify what counts as a permissible secondary criterion that resemble supervaluationist conditions that (...) qualify what counts as admissible precisifications of vague terms. (shrink)

This article presents an approach to how to make reasonable social choices when independent criteria (e.g., prioritarianism, religious freedom) fail to fully determine what to do. The article outlines different explanations of why independent criteria sometimes fail to fully determine what to do and illustrates how they can still be used to eliminate ineligible alternatives, but it is argued that the independent criteria cannot ground a reasonable social choice in these situations. To complement independent criteria when they fail to fully (...) determine what to do, it is suggested that society must engage in public deliberation by way of generating new reasons that can determine how to rank the alternatives. It is suggested that the approach to social choice presented here reveals a way of accepting the relevance of independent criteria for social choice without letting go of the idea that the attitudes of affected parties matter. (shrink)

The article takes the first steps towards a general theory of civil society elites, a concept not fully developed in either elite or civil society research. This conceptual gap hampers academic and public understanding of the dynamics at the top of civil society. To address this, the authors rely on the theoretical framework of Pierre Bourdieu to build a theory of civil society elites as managers of civic capital. This role is illustrated through examples from the differently institutionalised UK and (...) Nordic civil societies. The first part of the article introduces the notion of civic capital and its emergence during the 19th century. The second part focuses on elite positions in civil society fields, demonstrating how civil society elites, as managers of civic capital, navigate between their constituents and other elite groups. These elites wield the power to consecrate social relations while misrecognising their own symbolic and economic gains. Recent scandals in the climate movement and UK and Nordic civil societies shed light on the symbolic aspects of the positions of civil society elites. This comprehensive analysis contributes to elite and civil society research and enriches public discussions about the role of civil society leaders in society. (shrink)

In many biological experiments, due to gene-redundancy or distributed backup mechanisms, there are no visible effects on the functionality of the organism when a gene is knocked out or down. In such cases there is apparently no counterfactual dependence between the gene and the phenotype in question, although intuitively the gene is causally relevant. Due to relativity of causal relations to causal models, we suggest that such cases can be handled by changing the resolution of the causal model that represents (...) the system. By decreasing the resolution of our causal model, counterfactual dependencies can be established at a higher level of abstraction. By increasing the resolution, stepwise causal dependencies of the right kind can serve as a sufficient condition for causal relevance. Finally, we discuss how introducing a temporal dimension in causal models can account for causation in cases of non-modular systems dynamics. (shrink)

Many views of utterance comprehension agree that understanding an utterance involves knowing, believing, perceiving, or, anyhow, mentally representing the utterance to mean such-and-such. They include cognitivist as well as many perceptualist views; I give them the generic label ‘representationalist’. Representationalist views have been criticized for placing an undue metasemantic demand on utterance comprehension, viz. that speakers be able to represent meaning as meaning. Critics have adverted to young speakers, say about the age of three, who do comprehend many utterances but (...) may be rather limited in their abilities to think about meaning as such, to cast doubt on this demand. This paper motivates representationalism, examines what the balance of developmental evidence and arguments shows, and identifies options for a representationalist response. Though there is some evidence that three-year-olds have limited abilities to think about meaning as such, they may yet turn out to have a concept of meaning, or at least some proto-semantic concept. Moreover, even if they lack any such concept, there is, I propose, a way of developing representationalism, drawing inspiration from Davidson’s paratactic view of indirect speech reports, on which meaning can be non-conceptually represented. Independently of developmental considerations, this paratactic-style proposal is of interest to friends of a perceptualist view of comprehension. (shrink)

In recent years, a new argument in favor of Donnellan’s (Philos Rev 77: 281–304, 1966) semantic distinction between attributive and referential descriptions has been proposed by Michael Devitt and Marga Reimer. This argument is based on two empirical premises concerning regularity of use and processing ease. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate (a) that these empirical observations are dubious and fail to license the conclusion of the argument and (b) that if the argument were sound, it would severely overgenerate. (...) The general lesson of the paper is that empirical observations about (a) how frequent an expression E is used to mean M and (b) how easy and fast M is processed cannot be taken to provide reliable evidence about the lexically encoded semantic properties of E. (shrink)

A notorious debate in the ethics of healthcare rationing concerns whether to address rationing decisions with substantial principles or with a procedural approach. One major argument in favour of procedural approaches is that substantial principles are indeterminate so that we can reasonably disagree about how to apply them. To deal with indeterminacy, we need a just decision process. In this paper I argue that it is a mistake to abandon substantial principles just because they are indeterminate. It is true that (...) reasonable substantial principles designed to deal with healthcare rationing can be expected to be indeterminate. Yet, the indeterminacy is only partial. In some situations we can fully determine what to do in light of the principles, in some situations we cannot. The conclusion to draw from this fact is not that we need to develop procedural approaches to healthcare rationing, but rather that we need a more complex theory in which both substantial principles and procedural approaches are needed. (shrink)

This article engages the French pragmatism of Laurent Thévenot, Luc Boltanski and Bruno Latour in debates on how to forge a moral-political sociology of ecological valuation, justification and critique. Picking up the debate initiated by Thévenot on the possible emergence of a novel ‘green’ order of worth, the article juxtaposes the sociology of critical capacity of Boltanski and Thévenot with the actor-network theory of Bruno Latour. In doing so, the article suggests that each of these three pragmatic sociologists succeeds, in (...) characteristically different ways, in theoretically articulating an important but partial socio-political grammar of ecological worth. This claim is substantiated by invoking three case studies into environmental critique and compromise, on transnational carbon markets, urban sustainability projects, and Japanese whaling, respectively. Against this backdrop, the article concludes that – when read together as grammarians of the ecological bond – pragmatic sociology provides important insights into the bounded multiplicity of nature’s worth in political modernity. (shrink)

This paper explores the connection between wonder and meaning, in particular ‘the meaning of life’, a connection that, despite strong intrinsic connections between wonder and the (philosoph...

As cognitive neuroscience has advanced, the list of prospective internal, biological enhancements has steadily expanded. Education and training, as well as the use of external information‐processing devices, may be labeled as “conventional” means of cognition enhancement (CE). They are often well established and culturally accepted. By contrast, methods of enhancing cognition through “unconventional” means, such as ones involving deliberately created nootropic drugs, gene therapy, or neural implants, are nearly all to be regarded as experimental at the present time. Transcranial magnetic (...) stimulation (TMS), genetic interventions, brain‐computer interfaces and new senses are highly experimental and unlikely to be important over the next 15 years. Many of the concerns about enhancement are nonspecific to the tools used to achieve it, which means that enhancement–ethic scrutiny should also apply to nonbiological external enhancements. (shrink)

TOPICS DISCUSSED INCLUDE THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN, THE THEOLOGICAL IMPORTANCE OF THE NEW NATURAL SCIENCES, ARGUMENTS FROM MIRACLES, THE MEANING OF STATEMENTS ABOUT GOD, THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE IDEA OF GOD AND VARIOUS APOLOGETIC ARGUMENTS, AND ETHICAL AND META-ETHICAL THEORIES. (BP, EDITED).