In March 2004, the U.K. government announced its intention to grant limited authorization for the growing of commercial genetically modified (GM) crops. This article reviews the potential liabilities that may arise from GM cropping, for environmental damage and for economic losses claimed by non-GM producers. It considers the application of the European Community (EC) Environmental Liability Directive of 2004 to genetically modified organisms (GMO) releases, and the proposed statutory scheme for the coexistence of GM and non-GM agriculture in England and (...) Wales. It also examines the application of the common law of nuisance to the release of GMOs and considers the relevant case law of the English courts. Although there will be a residual role for liability at common law following the establishment of a statutory coexistence scheme, the article highlights a number of formidable problems facing attempts to establish claims for liability arising from GMO releases at common law. (shrink)

In ‘Pro-life arguments against infanticide and why they are not convincing’ Joona Räsänen argues that Christopher Kaczor's objections to Giubilini and Minerva's position on infanticide are not persuasive. We argue that Räsänen's criticism is largely misplaced, and that he has not engaged with Kaczor's strongest arguments against infanticide. We reply to each of Räsänen's criticisms, drawing on the full range of Kaczor's arguments, as well as adding some of our own.

In their target article, “Proposed Principles for International Bioethics Conferencing: Anti-Discriminatory, Global, and Inclusive,” Jecker et al. (2024) highlight the growing international scope o...

Meta‐analysis: the glass eye of evidence‐based practice?Meta‐analysis was developed as a technique for combining the results of many different quantitative studies: it is often used to produce quantitative estimates of causal relations and/or association between variables. Meta‐analysis is sometimes regarded as a central component of evidence‐based practice. We draw attention to an incompatibility in the epistemology and methods of reasoning in quantitative meta‐analysis and the epistemology and reasoning implicit in expert practice. We argue that this may be because the common (...) perception of meta‐analysis appeals to truth as correspondence; we suggest that rejecting the naïve realism that underpins truth as correspondence allows meta‐analysis to be understood in terms of truth as coherence. We can then develop an account of meta‐analysis that does not depend upon reduction to a mathematical procedure but is an attempt to maximise coherence in beliefs about what works that is consistent with clinical reasoning in expert practice. (shrink)

To determine when the life of a human organism begins, Mark T. Brown has developed the somatic integration definition of life. Derived from diagnostic criteria for human death, Brown’s account requires the presence of a life‐regulation internal control system for an entity to be considered a living organism. According to Brown, the earliest point at which a developing human could satisfy this requirement is at the beginning of the fetal stage, and so the embryo is not regarded as a living (...) human organism. This, Brown claims, has significant bioethical implications for both abortion and embryo experimentation. Here, we dispute the cogency of Brown’s derivation. Diagnostic criteria for death are used to determine when an organism irreversibly ceases functioning as an integrated whole, and may vary significantly depending on how developed the organism is. Brown’s definition is derived from a specific definition of death applicable to postnatal human beings, which is insufficient for generating a general definition for human organismal life. We have also examined the bioethical implications of Brown’s view, and have concluded that they are not as significant as he believes. Whether the embryo is classified as a human organism is of peripheral interest—a far more morally relevant question is whether the embryo is a biological individual with an identity that is capable of persisting during development. (shrink)

This book provides extensive and critical engagement with some of the most recent and compelling arguments favoring abortion choice. It features original essays from leading and emerging philosophers, bioethicists and medical professionals that present philosophically sophisticated and novel arguments against abortion choice. The chapters in this book are divided into three thematic sections. The first set of essays focuses primarily on unborn human individuals--zygotes, embryos and fetuses. In these chapters it is argued, for example, that human organisms begin to exist (...) at conception and that zygotes, embryos and fetuses are persons. These chapters also explore questions about whether or not zygotes, embryos and fetuses are part of their mothers' bodies. The second set of essays focuses primarily on elective abortion and the debates surrounding it. These chapters consider whether or not opponents of abortion are commonly hypocritical, how opponents of abortion should think about adoption, how emerging technologies may affect the current debate and whether or not those participating in the debate should rely on analogies to support their case. Finally, the third set of essays shifts focus from the legal and moral status of elective abortion to its place in medical practice. In these chapters it is argued that elective abortion embodies a kind of ableism, and that elective abortion is medically unnecessary, harmful to women's mental health and that telemedicine abortion poses significant risks to women's health. Agency, Pregnancy and Persons offers an up-to-date examination of unborn human beings, the debates surrounding elective abortion and the place of elective abortion within medical practice. It will be of interest to medical professionals and those who work in philosophy, bioethics and medical ethics alike. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 34.4 (2001) 292-307 [Access article in PDF] The Rhetoric of the Geometrical Method Spinoza's Double Strategy Christopher P. Long A double strategy may be apprehended in the first definitions, axioms and propositions of Spinoza's Ethics: the one is rhetorical, the other, systematic. Insofar as these opening passages constitute a geometrical argument that leads ultimately to the strict monism that lies at the heart of Spinoza's (...) philosophy, they function systematically as grounding principles. However, insofar as they are designed to uncover errors at the heart of the Cartesian system, they function rhetorically as a critique of Descartes's equivocal theory of substance. The geometrical mode of presentation lends an aura of necessity to the systematic strategy and tends to eclipse the rhetorical strategy that functions as a critique of Cartesian dualism. 1 To this extent, the systematic strategy itself functions rhetorically. On the other hand, to the extent that any seventeenth-century attempt to establish a monistic system would inevitably have had to involve a critique of Cartesian dualism, the rhetorical strategy itself functions systematically. Thus, although two distinct strategies are simultaneously discernible in the opening passages of the Ethics, the two work together, each arguing on a different front, to establish Spinoza's monism. By focusing on the rhetorical side of this double strategy, the underlying nature of Spinoza's critique of Descartes can be clarified and certain gaps in the systematic, geometrical argument for monism can be explained. Descartes's theory of substance The rhetorical strategy Spinoza employs at the outset of the Ethics involves a brilliant use of equivocation and ambiguity designed to draw a reader dedicated to Cartesian dualism into the heart of an argument designed to [End Page 292] undermine this dualism itself. The impetus behind this rhetorical critique is surely Spinoza's dissatisfaction with Descartes's theory of substance. 1. Descartes's equivocation Descartes's theory rests upon a fundamental equivocation: on the one hand, the term "substance" is meant strictly to designate that which is absolutely self-sufficient, namely, God; on the other hand, Descartes allows for a weaker understanding of substance, which pertains to those things (specifically res cogitans and res extensa) that require only the concurrence of God in order to exist (Principles I, 51-52; AT VIIIA24-25). 2 Thus, for Descartes, although God is, strictly speaking, the only substance, there remains a sense in which both res cogitans and res extensa may be understood as substances as well.Ultimately, this equivocal understanding of substance may be traced to a tension internal to Descartes between the Aristotelian notion of substance as underlying subject and the seventeenth-century mutation of that notion, which came to be defined in terms of causal self-sufficiency. 3 Jonathan Bennett traces the source of this mutation back to the view held by Aristotle that the existence of some property depends upon its being instantiated--that is, there can be no courage unless there exists someone courageous. He continues his interesting argument thus: This suggests that there is a relation of dependence running from properties to the things that have them and not conversely. The dependence would be logical: the thesis must be that "existent but uninstantiated property" is conceptually defective, not merely contrary to physics. Thus, one mark of a genuine thing, or substance, is its not being logically dependent for its existence on anything else. (Bennett 1984, 56) The development of this line of thinking leads to the conception of substance we find both in Descartes's Principles and in Spinoza's Ethics, namely, that a substance must not causally depend on anything outside of itself for its existence. 4 However, with Descartes, what emerges out of this tradition is a hybrid understanding of substance in which the term "substance" is not reserved simply for that which is utterly self-sufficient (God), but extends to those things that depend only upon the concurrence of God for their existence (rescogitans and resextensa). This bifurcated understanding of substance seems to stem from the distinction at work in [End Page 293] Aristotle... (shrink)

(2008). The Framework of Essences in Spinoza's Ethics. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 489-509. doi: 10.1080/09608780802200489.

Ectogenesis, or the use of an artificial womb to allow a foetus to develop, will likely become a reality within a few decades, and could significantly affect the abortion debate. We first examine the implications for Judith Jarvis Thomson’s violinist analogy, which argues for a woman’s right to withdraw life support from the foetus and so terminate her pregnancy, even if the foetus is granted full moral status. We show that on Thomson’s reasoning, there is no right to the death (...) of the foetus, and abortion is not permissible if ectogenesis is available, provided it is safe and inexpensive. This raises the question of whether there are persuasive reasons for the right to the death of the foetus that could be exercised in the context of ectogenesis. Eric Mathison and Jeremy Davis have examined several arguments for this right, doubting that it exists, while Joona Räsänen has recently criticized their reasoning. We respond to Räsänen’s analysis, concluding that his arguments are unsuccessful, and that there is no right to the death of the foetus in these circumstances. (shrink)

Derk Pereboom has posed an empirical objection to agent-causal libertarianism: The best empirically confirmed scientific theories feature physical laws predicting no long-run deviations from fixed conditional frequencies that govern events. If agent-causal libertarianism were true, however, then it would be virtually certain, absent ‘wild coincidences’, that such long-run deviations would occur. So, current empirical evidence makes agent-causal libertarianism unlikely. This paper formulates Pereboom’s ‘Problem of Wild Coincidences’ as a five-step argument and considers two recent responses. Then, it offers a different (...) response: The Problem of Wild Coincidences does not show that current empirical evidence makes agent-causal libertarianism unlikely, even if all events are governed by physical laws featuring fixed long-run conditional frequencies and even if agents can ‘overrule’ normal physical laws. (shrink)

Despite the emphasis on moral intuition in the research literature, little attention has been given to the ways in which moral intuition can be educated within management settings. In this paper, I discuss an experiential learning approach that links Robin Hogarth’s work on the learning of intuition with Mary Gentile’s educational program on values-based leadership, Giving Voice To Values. Building on Hogarth’s proposal that intuitions are primarily acquired and thus shaped by our experiences, GVV offers a pedagogical framework for reflective, (...) experiential learning. Specific attention is given to the themes of learning environments, how these structures shape intuitions, and how students can identify these structures using the GVV emphasis on examination of past experiences. (shrink)

Tracing a path opened by an enigmatic reference in Reiner Schürmann’s dissertation to the symbol of water in James Baldwin’s, this essay follows the thinking of Schürmann and Baldwin to the tragic denial that perverts the ideals of the United States from the moment of its founding. Drawing on Schürmann’s imperative hermeneutics, we attend to Baldwin’s essays from the 1960s as they call white citizens of the United States to take on the “hideously difficult” task of achieving our identity as (...) a nation by facing our history and transforming ourselves as human beings. The symbols of water, fire, and love point us to new ways of existing rooted in practices of love—sensual releasement, ethical candor, and ethical imagination—that just might enable us to create a more perfect union. (shrink)

A $\Pi _{1}^{0}$ class is the set of paths through a computable tree. Given classes P and Q, P is Medvedev reducible to Q, P ≤M Q, if there is a computably continuous functional mapping Q into P. We look at the lattice formed by $\Pi _{1}^{0}$ subclasses of 2ω under this reduction. It is known that the degree of a splitting class of c.e. sets is non-branching. We further characterize non-branching degrees, providing two additional properties which guarantee non-branching: inseparable (...) and hyperinseparable. Our main result is to show that non-branching iff inseparable if hyperinseparable if homogeneous and that all unstated implications do not hold. We also show that inseparable and not hyperinseparable degrees are downward dense. (shrink)

In the Gorgias, Socrates claims to practice the true art of politics, but the peculiar politics he practices involves cultivating in each individual he encounters an erotic desire to live a life animated by the ideals of justice, beauty and the good. Socratic and Platonic Political Philosophy demonstrates that what Socrates sought to do with those he encountered, Platonic writing attempts to do with readers. Christopher P. Long's attentive readings of the Protagoras, Gorgias, Phaedo, Apology, and Phaedrus invite us (...) to cultivate the habits of thinking and responding that mark the practices of both Socratic and Platonic politics. Platonic political writing is here experienced in a new way as the contours of a politics of reading emerges in which the community of readers is called to consider how a commitment to speaking the truth and acting toward justice can enrich our lives together. (shrink)

A substantial proportion of human embryos spontaneously abort soon after conception, and ethicists have argued this is problematic for the pro-life view that a human embryo has the same moral status as an adult from conception. Firstly, if human embryos are our moral equals, this entails spontaneous abortion is one of humanity’s most important problems, and it is claimed this is absurd, and a reductio of the moral status claim. Secondly, it is claimed that pro-life advocates do not act as (...) if spontaneous abortion is important, implying they are failing to fulfill their moral obligations. We report that the primary cause of spontaneous abortion is chromosomal defects, which are currently unpreventable, and show that as the other major cause of prenatal death is induced abortion, pro-life advocates can legitimately continue efforts to oppose it. We also defend the relevance of the killing and letting die distinction, which provides further justification for pro-life priorities. (shrink)

Despite the emphasis on moral intuition in the research literature, little attention has been given to the ways in which moral intuition can be educated within management settings (Dane & Pratt 2007). In this paper, I discuss an experiential learning approach that links Robin Hogarth’s (2001, 2008) work on the learning of intuition with Mary Gentile’s (2010) educational program on values-based leadership, Giving Voice To Values (GVV). Building on Hogarth’s proposal that intuitions are primarily acquired and thus shaped by our (...) experiences, GVV offers a pedagogical framework for reflective, experiential learning. Specific attention is given to the themes of learning environments, how these structures shape intuitions, and how students can identify these structures using the GVV emphasis on examination of past experiences. (shrink)

. Human capabilities theory has emerged as an important framework for measuring whether various social systems promote human flourishing. The premise of this theory is that human beings share some nearly universal capabilities; what makes a human life fulfilling is the opportunity to exercise these capabilities. This essay proposes that the use of human capabilities theory can be expanded to assess whether a company has organized the work environment in such a way that allows workers to develop a variety of (...) human capabilities. This mode of analysis is put forward as a complement to the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who has suggested that the key to promoting human well-being in the workplace is the maximization of flow experiences. (shrink)

Ontology has been traditionally guided by sophia, a form of knowledge directed toward that which is eternal, permanent, necessary. This tradition finds an important early expression in the philosophical ontology of Aristotle. Yet in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle's intense concern to do justice to the world of finite contingency leads him to develop a mode of knowledge, phronsis, that implicitly challenges the hegemony of sophia and the economy of values on which it depends. Following in the tradition of the early (...) Heidegger's recognition of the ontological significance of Aristotle's Ethics and of Gadamer's appropriation of phronsis for hermeneutics, this article argues that an ontology guided by phronsis is preferable to one governed by sophia. Specifically, it suggests that by taking sophia as its paradigm, traditional philosophical ontology has historically been determined by a kind of knowledge that is incapable of critically considering the concrete historico-ethico-political conditions of its own deployment. This critique of sophia is accomplished by uncovering the economy of values that led Aristotle to privilege sophia over phronsis. It is intended to open up the possibility of developing an ontology of finite contingency based on phronsis. Such an ontology, because it is guided by and must remain responsible to the concrete individual with which it is engaged, would be ethical at its very core. (shrink)

As histories of nanotechnology are created, one question arises repeatedly: how influential was Richard Feynman’s 1959 talk, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”? It is often said by knowledgeable people that this talk was the origin of nanotech. It preceded events like the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope, but did it inspire scientists to do things they would not have done otherwise? Did Feynman’s paper directly influence important scientific developments in nanotechnology? Or is his paper being retroactively read (...) into the history of nanotechnology? To explore those questions, I trace the history of “Plenty of Room,” including its publication and republication, its record of citations in scientific literature, and the comments of eight luminaries of nanotechnology. This biography of a text and its life among other texts enables us to articulate Feynman’s paper with the history of nanotechnology in new ways as it explores how Feynman’s paper is read. (shrink)

Using a subliminal priming lexical decision task, the present research investigated whether individuals who show negative implicit evaluations of an ex-partner immediately after a break-up show superior post-break-up emotional adjustment. As expected, individuals whose reaction times indicated negative implicit evaluations of their ex-partner showed reduced depressive affect immediately after the break-up. Individuals who did not initiate their break-up demonstrated less negative implicit evaluations of their ex-partners as well as more depressive affect. Finally, increased negative implicit evaluations of ex-partners over a (...) one-month period were associated with corresponding improvements in adjustment. The findings demonstrate a critical role for implicit evaluations in post-break-up adjustment. (shrink)

For the mature Leibniz, a living being is a created substance composed of an infinitely complex organic body and a simple, immaterial soul. Soul and body do not interact directly, but rather their states correspond according to a harmony preestablished by God. I show that Leibniz’s theory faces challenges with respect to the question of whether substances need to possess knowledge of how they bring about their effects, and I argue that, to address these challenges, Leibniz turns to a concept (...) of “divine preformation” that he attributes to both soul and body. Insofar as divine preformation provides Leibniz with an explanation for how soul and body can both act without possessing explicit knowledge of what they are doing, it serves as a key tool for justifying the theory of preestablished harmony. (shrink)

Leibniz standardly associates “mechanism” with extended material bodies and their aggregates. In this paper, I identify and analyze a further distinct sense of “mechanism” in Leibniz that extends, by analogy, beyond the domain of material bodies and applies to the operations of immaterial substances such as the monads that serve, for Leibniz, as the metaphysical foundations of physical reality. I argue that in this sense, Leibniz understands “mechanism” as an intelligible process that is capable of providing a sufficient reason for (...) a series of changes. I then apply these findings to enrich our understanding of Leibniz’s well-known mill argument in Monadology ¶17: although material machines and mechanisms cannot produce perceptions, the perceptual activity of immaterial monads is to be understood as “mechanical” according to this analogical sense. (shrink)

In Plato’s Protagoras Alcibiades plays the role of Hermes, the ‘ambassador god,’ who helps lead Socrates’ conversation with Protagoras through a crisis of dialogue that threatens to destroy the community of education established by the dialogue itself. By tracing the moments when Alcibiades intervenes in the conversation, we are led to an understanding of Socratic politics as always concerned with the course of the life of an individual and the proper time in which it might be turned toward the question (...) of justice and the good. (shrink)

The young Spinoza and the mature Leibniz both characterize the soul as a self-moving spiritual automaton. Though it is unclear if Leibniz’s use of the term was suggested to him from his reading of Spinoza, Leibniz was aware of its presence in Spinoza’s Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect. Considering Leibniz’s staunch opposition to Spinozism, the question arises as to why he was willing to adopt this term. I propose an answer to this question by comparing the spiritual automaton (...) in both philosophers. For Spinoza, the soul acts as a spiritual automaton when it overcomes imaginative ideas and produces true ideas. For Leibniz, the soul acts as a spiritual automaton when it spontaneously produces its perceptions according to the universal harmony preestablished by God. Thus, for Leibniz contra Spinoza, the spiritual automaton is a means to render intelligible a providential order in which everything happens for the best. (shrink)

The subject of “the last pagans” or “the end of paganism” in the Greco-Roman world has interested scholars for over a century but begs the question “What is paganism?” Is the term usable as a tool of analysis? It originates from the Latin paganus, meaning “villager,” “rustic,” and reflects the way that Latin speakers viewed early Christianity as a phenomenon of the countryside, much as the English heathen, or German Heide, derives from a root meaning “heath.” Greek-speaking Christians, by contrast, (...) used a variety of terms, but their favored one was Hellene, which reflected the perception that their main opposition came from Greeks who remained faithful to their traditional culture and beliefs. Hence paganism, when used by a modern author, is implicitly one-sided and also obscures the very real gap in perception between Greek speakers and Latin speakers of antiquity. Accordingly, some recent authors have tried to replace pagan with polytheist, but the latter term has the disadvantage that many pagans tended toward monotheism, or to a modified monotheism that regarded one god as vastly superior to all others (“henotheism”). Heathen is similar in being an insider's term, current when Christianity was the default position of religious discourse, and now largely obsolete. It is best to retain the word pagan but to concede that it is merely a pis aller. (shrink)

Scholars often assume that Aristotle uses the terms morphē and eidos interchangeably. Translators of Aristotle's works rarely feel the need to carry the distinctionbetween these two Greek terms over into English. This article challenges the orthodox view that morphē and eidos are synonymous. Careful analysis of texts fromthe Categories, Physics, and Metaphysics in which these terms appear in close proximity reveals a fundamental tension of Aristotle's thinking concerning the being of natural beings. Morphē designates the form as inseparable from the (...) matter in which it inheres, while eidos, because it is more easily separated from matter, is the vocabulary used to determine form as the ontological principle of the composite individual. The tension between morphē and eidos—between form as irreducibly immanent and yet somehow separate—is then shown to animate Aristotle's phenomenological approach to the being of natural beings. This approach is most clearly enacted in Aristotle's biology, a consideration of which concludes the essay. (shrink)

This essay suggests the possibility of conceiving the transcendental synthesis of imagination in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason as the understanding at work on sensibility by developing an active conception of identity according to which the distinction between the imagination and the understanding is merely nominal. Aristotle's philosophy is shown both to provide such a conception of identity and to be tacitly at work in Kant's thinking. Finally, the essay traces this position into the discussion of aesthetic judgment in the (...) Critique of Judgment. (shrink)

Essays honoring the work of Catholic ethicist James F. Keenan.

This paper analyzes Leibniz’s use of analogies in both natural philosophical and metaphysical contexts. Through an examination of Leibniz’s notes on scientific methodology, I show that Leibniz explicitly recognizes the utility of analogies as heuristic tools that aid us in conceiving unfamiliar theoretical domains. I further argue that Leibniz uses the notion of a self-moving machine or automaton to help capture the activities of the immaterial soul. My account helps resist the conventional image of Leibniz as an arch-rationalist unconcerned with (...) methods of empirical discovery and contributes to ongoing discussions on the nature of immaterial substance and mind in Leibniz. (shrink)

PDZ (also called DHR or GLGF) domains are found in diverse membraneassociated proteins including members of the MAGUK family of guanylate kinase homologues, several protein phosphatases and kinases, neuronal nitric oxide synthase, and several dystrophin‐associated proteins, collectively known as syntrophins. Many PDZ domain‐containing proteins appear to be localised to highly specialised submembranous sites, suggesting their participation in cellular junction formation, receptor or channel clustering, and intracellular signalling events. PDZ domains of several MAGUKs interact with the C‐terminal polypeptides of a subset (...) of NMDA receptor subunits and/or with Shaker‐type K+ channels. Other PDZ domains have been shown to bind similar ligands of other transmembrane receptors. Recently, the crystal structures of PDZ domains, with and without ligand, have been determined. These demonstrate the mode of ligand‐binding and the structural bases for sequence conservation among diverse PDZ domains. (shrink)

Introduction: Although deep brain stimulation often improves levodopa-responsive gait symptoms, robust therapies for gait dysfunction from Parkinson's disease remain a major unmet need. Walking speed could represent a simple, integrated tool to assess DBS efficacy but is often not examined systematically or quantitatively during DBS programming. Here we investigate the reliability and functional significance of changes in gait by directional DBS in the subthalamic nucleus.Methods: Nineteen patients underwent unilateral subthalamic nucleus DBS surgery with an eight-contact directional lead in the most (...) severely affected hemisphere. They arrived off dopaminergic medications >12 h preoperatively and for device activation 1 month after surgery. We measured a comfortable walking speed using an instrumented walkway with DBS off and at each of 10 stimulation configurations at the midpoint of the therapeutic window. Repeated measures of ANOVA contrasted preoperative vs. maximum and minimum walking speeds across DBS configurations during device activation. Intraclass correlation coefficients examined walking speed reliability across the four trials within each DBS configuration. We also investigated whether changes in walking speed related to modification of step length vs. cadence with a one-sample t-test.Results: Mean comfortable walking speed improved significantly with DBS on vs. both DBS off and minimum speeds with DBS on. Pairwise comparisons showed no significant difference between DBS off and minimum comfortable walking speed with DBS on. Intraclass correlations were ≥0.949 within each condition. Changes in comfortable walk speed were conferred primarily by changes in step length.Conclusion: Acute assessment of walking speed is a reliable, clinically meaningful measure of gait function during DBS activation. Directional and circular unilateral subthalamic DBS in appropriate configurations elicit acute and clinically significant improvements in gait dysfunction related to PD. Next-generation directional DBS technologies have significant potential to enhance gait by individually tailoring stimulation parameters to optimize efficacy. (shrink)

As Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Stephen Strange has had several occasions in which he had to deal with the concept of a personal God. Despite his lack of traditional faith, there are important instances in which Doctor Strange acknowledges the Creator God using expressions drawn from the Western monotheistic traditions. In his Metaphysics, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle presents the idea of God, or more specifically a god among the gods, who is responsible for the origin and operation of the whole (...) universe. A more helpful image of God can be found in the writing of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who formed a theological synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy and Christian revelation. According to Aquinas, the all‐good Creator of the universe is the author of the moral law. In the Chronicles of Narnia, author and English professor C. S. Lewis refers to the eternal law of God as the “deep magic” that comes from the “Emperor Beyond the Sea”. (shrink)