The question ‘what is life?’ has long been a source of philosophical debate and in recent years has taken on increasing scientific importance. The most popular approach among both philosophers and scientists for answering this question is to provide a “definition” of life. In this article I explore a variety of different definitional approaches, both traditional and non-traditional, that have been used to “define” life. I argue that all of them are deeply flawed. It is my contention that a scientifically (...) compelling understanding of the nature of life presupposes an empirically adequate scientific theory (vs. definition) of life; as I argue, scientific theories are not the sort of thing that can be encapsulated in definitions. Unfortunately, as I also discuss, scientists are currently in no position to formulate even a tentative version of such a theory. Recent discoveries in biology and biochemistry have revealed that familiar Earth life represents a single example that may not be representative of life. If this is the case, life on Earth today provides an empirically inadequate foundation for theorizing about life considered generally. I sketch a strategy for procuring the needed additional examples of life without the guidance of a definition or theory of life, and close with an application to NASA’s fledgling search for extraterrestrial life. (shrink)

How to formulate the doctrine of relativism -- Evaluating the doctrine of relativism.

Bringing together the latest scientific advances and some of the most enduring subtle philosophical puzzles and problems, this book collects original historical and contemporary sources to explore the wide range of issues surrounding the nature of life. Selections ranging from Aristotle and Descartes to Sagan and Dawkins are organised around four broad themes covering classical discussions of life, the origins and extent of natural life, contemporary artificial life creations and the definition and meaning of 'life' in its most general form. (...) Each section is preceded by an extensive introduction connecting the various ideas discussed in individual chapters and providing helpful background material for understanding them. With its interdisciplinary perspective, this fascinating collection is essential reading for scientists and philosophers interested in astrobiology, synthetic biology and the philosophy of life. (shrink)

The book reviews the theory and concepts of happiness, explaining how these concepts underpin a line of research which is both an attempt to understand the determinants of happiness and a tool for understanding the effects of a host of phenomena on human well being.

In recent decades, the governance of food safety, food quality, on-farm environmental management and animal welfare has been shifting from the realm of ‘the government’ to that of the private sector. Corporate entities, especially the large supermarkets, have responded to neoliberal forms of governance and the resultant ‘hollowed-out’ state by instituting private standards for food, backed by processes of certification and policed through systems of third party auditing. Today’s food regime is one in which supermarkets impose ‘private standards’ along the (...) food supply chain to ensure compliance with a range of food safety goals—often above and beyond those prescribed by government. By examining regulatory governance in Australia, Norway and the United Kingdom we highlight emerging trajectories of food governance. We argue that the imposition of the new private forms of monitoring and compliance continue the project of agricultural restructuring that began with government support for structural adjustment schemes in agriculture and that these are most evident in the UK and Australia where neoliberalism is an entrenched philosophy. However, despite Norway’s identity as a social democracy, we also identify neoliberal ‘creep’ into the system of food governance. Small-scale producers in all three nations are finding themselves increasingly subject to governance through private, market-based mechanisms that, to varying degrees, are dominated by major supermarket chains. The result is agricultural restructuring not through the traditional avenues of elected governments, but via non-elected market operatives. (shrink)

Recent research into climate shocks and what this means for the on-farm production of food revealed mixed and unanticipated results. Whilst the research was triggered by a series of catastrophic, climate related disruptions, Australian beef producers interviewed for the study downplayed the immediate and direct impacts of climate shocks. When considering the changing nature of production under shifting climatic conditions, producers offered a commentary on the digital technology and data which interconnected with climate solutions deriving from both on and off (...) the farm. Perceptions of digital technologies were mixed. Some viewpoints outlined how data driven climate solutions supported on farm planning and decision making, helping to manage climate risks and shocks. However, alongside these narratives, concerns were raised about satellite-based sustainability surveillance and their implications for producer agency. These concerns include the data-informed actions of non-farming third parties, such as bank loan call-ins for properties perceived to be a climate risk, remote surveillance of ground cover, and the commercial re-appraisal of pastoral lands as carbon sinks. Digital solutions to climate shocks thus emerge as inherently ambivalent, a response to shocks and a potential catalyst for renewed crisis. Drawing upon the theoretical lens of relationality, we argue that digital data are increasingly entangled with other material and non-material elements that may disrupt and/or reconfigure the management of farming and with that, the future security of food production. In some instances, data-based solutions to climate risks and shocks present even greater risks to producer agency than climate risks and shocks themselves. (shrink)

For feminists, working in/with the ‘posts’ is, always has been, and must be, a collective and collaborative endeavour. Increasingly, post-inquiry involves taking seriously multiplicities of humans, nonhumans, more-than-and-other-than-humans, multispecies and natureculture entities, including viral, microbial, elemental and atmospheric relationalities. The individual papers in this Special Issue, this editorial, and the Special Issue as a whole attest to this imperative pull to the collective-collaborative in seeking to explore the entangled relations of/between feminisms and the ‘posts’. As a collaborative-collective multiplicity, the Special (...) Issue interrogates what these entangled relations offer for reconfiguring gender and education research, theory, pedagogic practice, activism and praxis. (shrink)

This article examines the current use of Jesus language in a convenience sample of twenty-five mission statements from Roman Catholic hospitals and health care systems in the United States. Only twelve statements specifically use the words “Jesus” or “Christ” in their mission statements. The author advocates the use of explicit Jesus language and modeling. While the witness of Jesus in the Gospel healing narratives is not the only corrective to current abuses in the health care delivery system, it is foundational (...) to the integrity of Roman Catholic health care identity and mission. An analysis of Gospel healing narratives is used to illustrate the prophetic dimension of Jesus' wisdom, word, and witness. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that group agency must be a social phenomenon because it involves interactions among many human beings. This assumption overlooks the real metaphysical nature of agency, which is both normative and voluntarist. Construed as a normative phenomenon, individual agency arises wherever there is a point of view from which deliberation and action proceed in accord with the requirements that define individual rationality. Such a point of view is never a metaphysical given, but is always a product of (...) rational activities that aim to satisfy the requirements that define individual rationality. When such a deliberative point of view is forged within a whole human life, there is a single agent of human size. But such points of view can also be forged within parts of human lives so as to constitute multiple agents within them; and they can also be achieved within groups of human lives so as to constitute group agents that literally deliberate and act as one. If such a group agent were a social phenomenon, then its agency would simultaneously be the agency of many even as it was also the agency of one. In that case, its deliberations and actions would have to proceed from many separate deliberative points of view, at the same time that they also proceeded from a single deliberative point of view. A correct account of rational agency shows that this is not necessarily so, and indeed, not typically so. Moreover, if it were so much as possible for this to be so, it would require special conditions of the sort that Rousseau identified in his account of the general will. But this special case is not a good model on which to understand the cases of group agency that are most often discussed in the philosophical literature. They are more appropriately viewed as cases in which the condition of individual agency is realized at the level of a group, than as cases of social agency per se. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Two Intuitions Underlying a Consensus on Relativism The Real Dividing Issue: Is the World One or Many? Disagreement and Relative Truth References.

: This response to the preceding article by Gastmans, Dierckx de Casterle, and Schotsmans challenges the notion of "good care" as the ultimate goal of nursing practice, explores further the possible goals of nursing and how they may be identified, and presents six elements of professional caring along with their related virtues and moral obligations.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Scientific Method of Yore The Structure and Research Practices of Scientific Historiography of Nature Explanation and Confirmation in Scientific Historiography Narrative Explanation Common Cause Explanation References.

American literary realism burgeoned during a period of tremendous technological innovation. Because the realists evinced not only a fascination with this new technology but also an ethos that seems to align itself with science, many have paired the two fields rather unproblematically. But this book demonstrates that many realist writers, from Mark Twain to Stephen Crane, Charles W. Chesnutt to Edith Wharton, felt a great deal of anxiety about the advent of new technologies – precisely at the crucial intersection of (...) ethics and language. For these writers, the communication revolution was a troubling phenomenon, not only because of the ways in which the new machines had changed and increased the circulation of language but, more pointedly, because of the ways in which language itself had effectively become a machine: a vehicle perpetuating some of society’s most pernicious clichés and stereotypes – particularly stereotypes of race – in unthinking iteration. This work takes a close look at how the realists tried to forge an ethical position between the two poles of science and sentimentality, attempting to create an alternative mode of speech that, avoiding the trap of codifying iteration, could enable ethical action. (shrink)

Qualitative researchers often face unpredictable ethical issues during fieldwork. These may be regarded as ethical dilemmas that need to be ‘solved’, but Guillemin and Gillam’s concept of ‘ethicall...

Pluralism is popular among philosophers of biology. This essay argues that negative judgments about universal biology, while understandable, are very premature. Familiar life on Earth represents a single example of life and, most importantly, there are empirical as well as theoretical reasons for suspecting that it may be unrepresentative. Scientifically compelling generalizations about the unity of life must await the discovery of forms of life descended from an alternative origin, the most promising candidate being the discovery of extraterrestrial life. Nonetheless, (...) in the absence of additional examples of life, we are best off exploring the microbial world for promising explanatory concepts, principles, and mechanisms rather than prematurely giving up on universal biology. Unicellular microbes are by far the oldest, metabolically most diverse, and environmentally tolerant form of life on our planet. Yet somewhat ironically, much of our theorizing about life still implicitly privileges complex multicellular eukaryotes, which are now understood to be highly specialized, fragile latecomers to Earth. The problem with pursuing a pluralist approach to understanding life is that it is likely to blind us to the significance of just those entities and causal processes most likely to shed light on the underlying nature of life. (shrink)

In this paper I consider the possibility that failing to fulfill the Kantian obligation to protect one’s rational nature might actually vitiate future instances of this obligation. I respond to this dilemma by defending a novel interpretation of Kant’s views on the relation between the value we have and the respect we are owed. I argue, contra the received view among Kant scholars, that the feature in virtue of which someone has unconditional and incomparable value is not the same feature (...) in virtue of which she is owed the respect that constrains how she may be treated. So, even though someone who fails to attempt to protect her rational nature fails to respect herself in the right way, and even though this moral failing does make her lose a certain kind of value, her obligations to respect herself do not go away. (shrink)

The public communication of science and technology has become increasingly important over the last several decades. However, understanding the audience that receives this information remains the weak link in the science communication process. This essay provides a brief review of some of the issues involved, discusses results from an audience-based study, and suggests some strategies that both scientists and journalists can use to modify media coverage in ways that can help audiences better understand major public issues that involve science and (...) technology. (shrink)

Despite substantial evidence pointing to a looming Malthusian catastrophe, governmental measures to reduce population have been opposed both by religious conservatives and by many liberals, especially liberal feminists. Liberal critics have claimed that 'utilitarian' population policies violate a 'fundamental right of reproductive liberty'. This essay argues that reproductive liberty should not be considered a fundamental human right, or certainly not an indefeasible right. It should, instead, be strictly regulated by a global agreement designed to reduce population to a sustainable level. (...) Three major points are discussed: 1) the current state of the overpopulation problem; 2) the claim of a fundamental human right of reproductive liberty; 3) an outline of a global agreement to address overpopulation as a 'tragedy of the commons'. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: McDowell's Criticisms of Parfit Group and Multiple Persons How Ethical Considerations Might Enter.

Matthew Kramer’s The Ethics of Capital Punishment: A Philosophical Investigation of Evil and its Consequences explores the morality of capital punishment and develops his own “purgative rationale” in support of the practice. I present my objections to Kramer’s purgative rationale and trace our disagreement to differences over the nature of evil, the autonomy of human character formation, and the concept of defilement.

When invited to describe what the experience of illness taught them, a select group of bioethicists took eagerly to the task. This commentary culls three themes from their reflections: responsiveness to vulnerability, love as the proper motive for care, and reflective practice. U.S. bioethics was slow to appreciate the importance of recognizing and responding to human vulnerability. These essays describe its central importance for those suffering illness and make educating a more empathic and responsive generation of caregivers a priority. Descriptions (...) of how family and friendship bonds with an ill person created a unique sense of their inherent dignity and needs clearly raises the question of whether or not love is a necessary motive for professional caregivers. Will our professional care always fall short if not motivated by genuine human love? Finally, each essay teaches anew the importance of the life lessons human experience can teach if we value reflection and seek to experience, understand and learn from our experience. (shrink)

The global food system has been subject to a multitude of shocks in recent years, drawing renewed attention to food insecurity vulnerabilities. Extreme weather events, economic crises, a global pandemic and wars have caused significant disruptions, compromising food security for significant portions of the population. Shocks impacting upon food systems bear additional adverse outcomes where populations are already vulnerable to poverty and other social inequalities, and increasingly, shocks are affecting populations not previously considered food insecure. This paper, and the Symposium (...) it introduces, articulates an emerging field of study that explores the dynamic interplay of food system shocks and food security through multiple disciplinary perspectives. The articles in this Symposium address the impacts of and responses to shocks such as weather events and the COVID-19 pandemic and consider these through the theoretical lenses of actor perspectives, governance, and transitions. This Symposium looks beyond the short-term acute event and contributes to a systemic understanding of ‘food shocks’ by reflecting on how enduring and persistent disruptions reverberate through multiple layers of food systems, how they are experienced and addressed across global and local scales, and how they may deeply transform food systems and impact people over time. (shrink)