What do we owe to the lower animals, if anything? The issues raised by this question are among the most fascinating and fundamental in ethical theory. They provide a real watershed for the moral philosopher and, on perhaps the most widely professed view, a trenchant test of consistency in ethical practice. Among the virtues of these two challenging books is that they make painfully clear that there has been a paucity of clear and plausible argument in support of the nearly (...) universal tendency of humans to eat animal flesh, and to visit varying degrees of pain, discomfort, and unfreedom on the animals in question in the process.When we are asked why it is all right to do this, given our strong belief that it is not all right for us to eat other humans, we tend to give answers that won't readily wash. We may say, for example, that animals are stupid; but we don't think it all right to eat stupid people, including people less apparently competent than many of the higher animals. Or we may say things that are patently untrue, such as that the other animals don't really feel pain anyway. (shrink)

A careful textural analysis of the "euthyphro", this article examines both the dialogues's dramatic situation and what socrates does in conjunction with what he says, and finds among his refutations indications of what he considers the holy to be.

Mathematical models are an important tool in the development ofsoftware technology, including programming languages and algorithms.During the last few years, a new class of such models has beendeveloped based on the notion of a mathematical game that isespecially well-suited to address the interactions between thecomponents of a system. This paper gives an introduction to thesegame-semantical models of programming languages, concentrating onmotivating the basic intuitions and putting them into context.

Cancers often express hundreds of genes otherwise specific to germ cells, the germline/cancer (GC) genes. Here, we present and discuss the hypothesis that activation of a “germline program” promotes cancer cell malignancy. We do so by proposing four hallmark processes of the germline: meiosis, epigenetic plasticity, migration, and metabolic plasticity. Together, these hallmarks enable replicative immortality of germ cells as well as cancer cells. Especially meiotic genes are frequently expressed in cancer, implying that genes unique to meiosis may play a (...) role in oncogenesis. Because GC genes are not expressed in healthy somatic tissues, they form an appealing source of specific treatment targets with limited side effects besides infertility. Although it is still unclear why germ cell specific genes are so abundantly expressed in cancer, from our hypothesis it follows that the germline's reproductive program is intrinsic to cancer development. (shrink)

After 1945, Czech philosophy and culture were first introduced to existentialism. First it was the original works of French existentialists (Sartre, Camus, Marcel), later by means of the journal Letters (1947) and Václav Černý (The first book on existentialism, 1948). The acceptance of existentialism in Czech context was not univocal. Besides factual analyses (J. Patočka, V. Navrátil, V. T. Miškovská), existentialism met with criticism and rejection mainly from Marxists and Catholic scholars for its rational weakness, pessimism, helplessness and intellectual decline.

Werner Hamacher, one of the most important and original theorists working in literary criticism and continental philosophy, explores topics at the intersection of philosophy, literary studies and politics.

Since rules - legal, ethical or otherwise - cannot determine their own application, they require persons of flesh and blood to interpret and apply them in concrete cases. Presidents and prime ministers, judges, prosecutors, mediators, leaders of international organizations, and even religious leaders and public intellectuals make decisions on how best to understand rules and how best to apply them. It stands to reason that their character traits influence the sort of decisions they take. This book provides the first systematic (...) framework for discussing global governance in terms of the virtues, and illustrates it with a number of detailed examples of concrete decision-making in specific situations. Virtue in Global Governance combines insights from law, ethics, and global governance studies in developing a unique approach to global governance and international law. (shrink)