On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible. Edited by Y. T. Radday and A. Brenner.The Trouble With Kings: The Composition of rhe Book of Kings in the Deuteronomistic History. By Steven L. McKenzie.Sacred Space: An Approach to the Zheology of the Epistle to the Hebrews. By Marie E. Isaacs.Fourth Ezra: A Commentary on the Book of Fourth Ezra. By Michael Edward StonePaul the Convert: iShe Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee. By Alan F. Segal.Creative Biblical Exegesis: Christian (...) and Jewish Hermeneutics through the Centuries. Edited by Benjamin Uffenheimer and Henning Graf Reventlow.The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Escharology. By Brian E. Daley.The Emergence of the Laity in the Early Church. By Alexandre Faivre, translated by David Smith.Pastoral Life and Practice in the Early Church. By Carl A. Volz.The Making of the Creeds. By Frances Young.La correzione fratenia in s. Agosrino. By Agostino Clerici.Beaup and Revelation in the Thought of St Augustine. By Carol Harrison.Grace, Politics and Desire. Edited by Hugo Meynell.Boerhius and Aquinas. By Ralph McInerny.The Weight of Glory. A Vision and Practice for Christian Faith: The Future of Liberal Theology. Edited by D. W. Hardy and P. H. Sedgwick.Atonenrent and Incarnation. By Vernon White.Tragic Method and Tragic Theology: Evil in Contemporary Drama and Religious Thought. By L. D. Bouchard.Parmenides of Elea, Fragments: A Text and Translation, with an Introduction. By David Gallop.Language, Thought and Falsehood in Ancient Greek Philosophy. By Nicholas Denyer.Weakness of the Will. By Justin Gosling.Knowledge and the Sciences in Medieval Philosophy. Vol. I, edited by Monica Asztalos, John E. Murdoch and Ilkka Niiniluoto.Episcopal Power and Norenrine Sociev. 1000–1320. By George W. Dameron.Matins, Lauds and Vespers for St David's Day. By Owain Tudor Edwards.More's ‘Utopia’. By Dominic Baker‐Smith.Frontiers of Heresy: The Spanish Inquisitionfrom the Basque Lands to Sicily. By William Monter.Inquisition and Society in the Kingdom of Valencia, 1478–1834, By Stephen Haliczer.The Fear of Hell: Images of Damnation and Salvation in Early Modern Europe. By Piero Camporesi, translated by Lucinda Byatt.Lucrecia's Dreams: Politics and Prophecy in Sixteenth‐Centun Spain. By Richard L. Kagan.Heresy and Mysticism in Sixteenth‐Century Spain: The Alumbrados. By Alastair Hamilton.Japan's Encounter with Christianiry: The Catholic Mission in Pre‐Modern Japan. By Neil S. Fujita.Galileo, Bellannine and the Bible. By Richard J.Augustine Baker's Inner Light: A Study in English Recusant Spirituality. By James Gaffney.The Prorestarit Evaqelical Awakening. By W. R. Ward.The Study of Anglicanism. Edited by Stephen Sykes and John Booty.The Anglican Tradition: A Handbook of Sources. Edited by G. R. Evans and J. Robert Wright.The Restoration Church of England, 1646‐1689. By John Spurr.Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People. By Jon Butler.A Woman Styled Bold: The Life of Cornelia Connelly, 1809–1879. By Radegunde Flaxman.Cane Ridge: America's Pentecost. By Paul K. Conkin.Revivalism and Social Change: Christianio, Nation Building and the Market in the Nineteenth‐Century United States. By George M. Thomas.Church and State: The English Experience. By Adrian Hastings.Evelyn Underhill: Artist of the Infinite Life. By Dana Greene.Northern Ireland: Fairh and Faction. By Maurice Irvine.The Tragedy of Belief: Division, Politics, arid Religion in Ireland. By John Fulton.Shattered Vows: Exodus from the Priesthood. By David Rice.Making Saints: Inside the Vatican: Who Become Saints, Who Do Not, and Why. By Kenneth L. Woodward.Ecclesiae Memoria: Miscellanea in onorr del R. P. Josef Metzler, O. M. I. Edited by Willi Henkel. (shrink)

We report here an emerging dispute in Italy concerning triage criteria for critically ill covid-19 patients, and how best to support doctors having to make difficult decisions in a context of insufficient life saving resources. The dispute we present is particularly significant as it juxtaposes two opposite views of who should make triage decisions, and how doctors should best be supported. There are both empirical and normative questions at stake here. The empirical questions pertain to the available level of evidence (...) that healthcare professionals would rather not be left alone with their ‘clinical judgments’ to make triage decisions, and to the accounts of distributive justice that doctors and healthcare professionals rely on, when making triage decisions. The normative questions pertain to how this empirical evidence should inform guidelines on how prioritisation decisions are made in a context of emergency, and who gets to have the authority to do so. This debate goes beyond the discussion of the care of critically ill patients with COVID-19 and has broader implications beyond the national context for the discussion of how to relieve moral distress in contexts of imbalances between healthcare resources and clinical needs of a population. (shrink)

In light of the World Anti Doping Agency’s 2013 Code Revision process, we critically explore the applicability of two of three criteria used to determine whether a method or substance should be considered for their Prohibited List, namely its (potential) performance enhancing effects and its (potential) risk to the health of the athlete. To do so, we compare two communities of human guinea pigs: (i) individuals who make a living out of serial participation in Phase 1 pharmacology trials; and (ii) (...) elite athletes who engage in what is effectively ‘unregulated clinical research’ by using untested prohibited or non-prohibited performance enhancing substances and methods, alone or in combination. Our comparison sheds light on norms of research ethics that these practices exacerbate with respect to the concepts of multiplicity, visibility, and consistency. We argue for the need to establish a proper governance framework to increase the accountability of these unregulated research practices in order to protect the human guinea pigs in elite sports contexts, and to establish reasonable grounds for the performance enhancing effects, and the risks to the health of the athlete, of the methods and substances that might justify their inclusion on the Prohibited List. (shrink)

Oscar Pistorius was born without fibulas and had both legs amputated below the knee when he was 11 months old. A business student at the University of Pretoria, Pistorius runs with the aid of carbon-fibre artificial limbs and is the double amputee world record holder in the 100, 200 and 400 metres events.1“I don’t see myself as disabled,” says Oscar, “There’s nothing I can’t do that able-bodied athletes can do.”2 But then the question is: do prosthetic limbs simply level the (...) ground for Pistorius—“Blade-runner”, compensating for his disability, or do they give him an unacceptable advantage? As Jeré Longman nicely put it: is he disabled, or too-abled?3Athletics’ world governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations , shares the latter opinion, and assigned to German Professor Brüggemann the task of monitoring Oscar’s performances and analysing the information. According to his study, Pistorius’ limbs use 25% less energy than able-bodied athletes to run at the same speed.4 On the strength of these findings, on 14 January 2008 the IAAF ruled …. (shrink)

Many believe that a citizen who engages in civil disobedience is not exempt from the sanctions that apply to standard law-breaking conduct. Since he is responsible for a deliberate breach of the law, he is also liable to punishment. Focusing on a conception of responsibility as answerability, I argue that a civil disobedient is responsible (i.e. answerable) to his fellows for the charges of wrongdoing, yet he is not liable to punishment merely for breaching the law. To support this claim, (...) I defend an account of political obligation framed in terms of respect for (rather than mere obedience to) the law, and argue that the mere illegality of civil disobedience does not suffice to establish wrongdoing. I then discuss and reject three objections to my argument. (shrink)

This paper aims to bring a novel approach to the discussion of unfair advantages in sport by looking for a local criterion of fairness instead of a universal criterion. A local criterion of fairness would not solve the general dispute over what counts as an unfair advantage, but it would be beneficial in evaluating specific cases and could guide further discussion about them. We seek a local criterion of fairness by comparing the specific property advantages of Caster Semenya and Eero (...) Mäntyranta. South African Semenya is a middle‐distance runner whose right to compete in the female category has been challenged owing to her assumed difference of sex development and related high level of testosterone. Finnish Mäntyranta was a cross‐country skier with an exceptionally high haematocrit level. We examine whether there is a relevant difference between their advantages that would justify treating the athletes differently. We propose that the criterion ‘not attainable by other athletes in the same category’ could stand as a local criterion of fairness under certain conditions. However, its proper application requires further discussion on how to justify categories in sport. (shrink)

There is a fundamental tension in many sports: human sex is not binary, but there are only two categories in which people can compete: male and female. Over the past 10 years, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) regulations have been at the centre of two notable legal disputes. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) reached two contradictory rulings: in the first case (Dutee Chand vs Athletics Federation India and IAAF), the IAAF regulations for the eligibility of athletes (...) to compete in the female category were suspended (24 July 2015) on grounds of "discrimination against the female category"; in the latter (Caster Semenya and Athletics South Africa vs IAAF), the regulations were reaffirmed (1 May 2019) on grounds that although discriminatory, they are necessary to maintain a "level playing field" and to “protect” the female category. Although Semenya’s case has paved the way for questioning existing gender norms in sport, a new stable norm has yet to emerge from her case. The pharmacological solution put forward by IAAF to the tension between fairness and inclusivity of bodies non-conforming to two sexes is not, however, the only possible solution/resolution to the case, as I aim to show in this paper. Here I present some reflections on this topic and suggest how CAS should approach the case if it hopes to resolve it. (shrink)

The fair-play theory of punishment claims that the state is justified in imposing additional burdens on law-breakers, to remove the unfair advantage the latter have enjoyed by disobeying the law. From this perspective, punishment reestablishes a fair distribution of benefits and burdens among all citizens. In this paper, I object to this view by focusing on the case of civil disobedience. I argue that the mere illegality of this conduct is insufficient to establish the agent’s unfair advantage over his lawabiding (...) fellows, hence the imposition of additional burdens upon him through legal punishment. I articulate a broader account of citizens’ fair-play duties, able to capture disobedience as well as obedience to the law. While claiming that some law-breakers may not be treated as free-riders, I also gesture at the fact that some law-obeying citizens may not be ‘playing fair’: in some cases, a failure to engage in civil disobedience represents a failure to do one’s own part within the cooperative scheme of society. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article examines the Trinitarian anthropology inherent in the ‘charism of unity’ that characterizes the Focolare Movement stemming from the mystical experience of Chiara Lubich. After describing the theological cornerstones of this charism―namely the evangelical centrality of the commandment of reciprocal love, the circularity between theology and anthropology and Jesus Forsaken as the Christological key to understanding and achieving unity―the article studies its cultural implications as reflected in the philosophical and theological contribution of Klaus Hemmerle. In dialogue with modern thought, (...) Hemmerle in fact draws from and develops the anthropological meaning of the charism of unity as a feasible way to respond to the most acute challenges of today. (shrink)

El autor plantea que el Estado ha ingresado en una creciente crisis y la sospecha sobre su real “utilidad” para la sociedad, y vincula a este tema el surgimiento de la cuestión del espacio público. Sostiene que un cambio radical se produce a partir de la nueva percepción del territorio, cuando ya no parece posible que el Estado, y por lo tanto el espacio público, pueda ser pensado exclusivamente en términos nacionales. Discute luego la relación espacio público-vida privada, y los (...) nuevos modos de hacer política en este nuevo espacio público. Afirma finalmente que la construcción de un bien común puede ser pensado y diseñado colectivamente. (shrink)

Advances in genetics and related biotechnologies are having a profound effect on sport, raising important ethical questions about the limits and possibilities of the human body. Drawing on real case studies and grounded in rigorous scientific evidence, this book offers an ethical critique of current practices and explores the intersection of genetics, ethics and sport. Written by two of the world's leading authorities on the ethics of biotechnology in sport, the book addresses the philosophical implications of the latest scientific developments (...) and technological data. Distinguishing fact from popular myth and science fiction, it covers key topics such as the genetic basis of sport performance and the role of genetic testing in talent identification and development. Its ten chapters discuss current debates surrounding issues such as the shifting relationship between genetics, sports medicine and sports science, gene enhancement, gene transfer technology, doping and disability sport. The first book to be published on this important subject in more than a decade, this is fascinating reading for anyone with an interest in the ethics of sport, bioethics or sport performance. (shrink)

Acts of civil disobedience, which imply the open violation of a legal directive, often result in the forceful imposition of a choice upon others (e.g. blockades). This is sometimes justifiable, within a democracy, in cases of ‘democratic deficit’, namely, when fundamental rights of an oppressed minority are at stake. In this article, I claim that the use of physical force, in a democracy, may also be justified by the rights of (at least some of) the very people upon whom force (...) is applied. Focusing on the nature of civil disobedience as a ‘form of address’, I argue: (1) using physical force to address others in the democratic arena does not entail infringing upon their status as autonomous agents; (2) using physical force to address others in the democratic arena may contribute to the fulfilment of a positive duty to promote the autonomy of (at least some of) those very people upon whom force is applied. This is not a defence of paternalism: I claim that using force against others, in the democratic arena, may be constitutive of a behaviour that treats others with the respect due to their status as autonomous agents. (shrink)

After years of failure, in November 2007 primate embryonic stem cells were derived by somatic cellular nuclear transfer, also known as therapeutic cloning. The first embryo transfer for human reproductive cloning purposes was also attempted in 2006, albeit with negative results. These two events force us to think carefully about the possibility of human cloning which is now much closer to becoming a reality. In this paper we tackle this issue from two sides, first summarising what scientists have achieved so (...) far, then discussing some of the ethical arguments in favour and against human cloning which are debated in the context of policy making and public consultation. Therapeutic cloning as a means to improve and save lives has uncontroversial moral value. As to human reproductive cloning, we consider and assess some common objections and failing to see them as conclusive. We do recognise, though, that there will be problems at the level of policy and regulation that might either impair the implementation of human reproductive cloning or make its accessibility restricted in a way that could become difficult to justify on moral grounds. We suggest using the time still available before human reproductive cloning is attempted successfully to create policies and institutions that can offer clear directives on its legitimate applications on the basis of solid arguments, coherent moral principles, and extensive public consultation. (shrink)

The authority of bioethics as a field of inquiry and of bioethicists as scholars with a distinctive expertise is being questioned on various fronts. Sarah Franklin’s 2019Naturecommentary ‘Ethical research – the long and bumpy road from shirked to shared’ is the latest example. In this paper, we respond to these challenges by focusing on two key issues. First, we discuss the theory and practice of bioethics. We argue that both of these endeavours are fundamental components of this field of inquiry (...) and that bioethics cannot be reduced to the contribution that it makes to the production of biopolicy, as Franklin suggests. Second, we contend that bioethicists have distinctive skills and knowledge that place them at an epistemic advantage in discussing normative questions. Hence, we reject views that deny the specific contribution that bioethicists can bring to assessing the ethics and governance of science and technology. We conclude by arguing that—despite formal and substantive differences between disciplines—philosophers, social scientists and other scholars should join forces and engage in critical friendships rather than turf wars to move towards the just governance of science and technology. (shrink)

These words were written by ethicist Jonathan Glover in his paper “Future People, Disability and Screening” in 1992. Whereas screening and choosing for a disability remained a theoretical possibility 16 years ago, it has now become reality. In 2006, Susannah Baruch and colleagues at John Hopkins University published a survey of 190 American preimplantation genetic diagnosis clinics, and found that 3% reported having the intentional use of PGD “to select an embryo for the presence of a disability.” Even before, in (...) 2002, a controversy was generated by the case of Candace A. McCullough and Sharon M. Duchesneau, a lesbian and deaf couple from Maryland who set out to have a deaf child by intentionally soliciting a deaf sperm donor. (shrink)

Caster Semenya, a South African 18-year-old, won the 800-metre track running title at the Berlin World Athletics Championships in 2009. Only 3 h later, her gender was being harshly contested. The investigation of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) was neither discreet nor respectful of her privacy. Caster's case has implications for the ethics of sports and debates about gender and enhancement, and for the philosophical debate about the nature of categories and the classification of people. The IAAF has (...) not disclosed the results of their tests on Caster, and the South African Ministry of Sport has decreed that in any case she can continue running with women in her own country. But could a scientific or medical test offer uncontroversial answers regarding Caster's gender? The concept of ‘gender’ is partly a social construction. The authors argue that ethics may guide science and medicine at addressing such questions. (shrink)

These words were written by ethicist Jonathan Glover in his paper “Future People, Disability and Screening” in 1992. Whereas screening and choosing for a disability remained a theoretical possibility 16 years ago, it has now become reality. In 2006, Susannah Baruch and colleagues at John Hopkins University published a survey of 190 American preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) clinics, and found that 3% reported having the intentional use of PGD “to select an embryo for the presence of a disability.” Even before, (...) in 2002, a controversy was generated by the case of Candace A. McCullough and Sharon M. Duchesneau, a lesbian and deaf couple from Maryland who set out to have a deaf child (then, Gauvin) by intentionally soliciting a deaf sperm donor. (shrink)

The Ethics of the New Eugenics, edited by Calum MacKellar and Christopher Bechtel ,An introductory “Note on the Text” states: “The research on which this book is based was commissioned by the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics. It is the result of the collective work of many individuals at the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics. Initial drafting and subsequent editing was the work of Calum MacKellar and Christopher Bechtel, as agreed to by the Ethics Committee of the Scottish Council on (...) Human Bioethics. They were appointed principal editors by the Council.” is a useful introductory reference book for those interested in the use of genetic technologies to improve the human species. MacKellar is the director of research for the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics and a visiting professor of bioethics at St. Mary’s University College London, and Bechtel is a research fellow at the SCHB. The Scottish Council on Bioethics commissioned and supported research for this volume. .. (shrink)

Protein aggregation has been studied for at least 3 decades, and many of the principles that regulate this event are relatively well understood. Here, however, we present a different perspective to explain why proteins aggregate: we argue that aggregation may occur as a side‐effect of the lack of one or more natural partners that, under physiologic conditions, would act as chaperones. This would explain why the same surfaces that have evolved for functional purposes are also those that favour aggregation. In (...) the course of reviewing this field, we substantiate our hypothesis with three paradigmatic examples that argue for the generality of our proposal. An obvious corollary of this hypothesis is, of course, that targeting the physiological partners of a protein could be the most direct and specific approach to designing anti‐aggregation molecules. Our analysis may thus inform a different strategy for combating diseases of protein aggregation and misfolding. (shrink)

The recent boom of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests, aimed at measuring children’s athletic potential, is the latest wave in the ‘pre-professionalization’ of children that has characterized, especially but not exclusively, the USA in the last 15 years or so. In this paper, I analyse the use of DTC genetic tests, sometimes coupled with more traditional methods of ‘talent scouting’, to assess a child’s predisposition to athletic performance. I first discuss the scientific evidence at the basis of these tests, and the (...) parental decision in terms of education, and of investing in the children’s future, taken on the basis of the results of the tests. I then discuss how these parental practices impact on the children’s right to an open future, and on their developing sense of autonomy. I also consider the meaning and role of sports in childhood, and conclude that the use of DTC genetic tests to measure children’s athletic potential should be seen as a ‘wake up’ call for other problematic parental attitudes aimed at scouting and developing children’s talent. (shrink)

Jason Brennan has argued that democracy is intrinsically unjust, for it grants voting power to politically incompetent individuals, thus exposing people to an undue risk of harm. He claims democracy should be replaced by epistocracy, i.e., the rule of the knowers. In this paper, I show that his argument fails. First, Brennan mistakes voters’ competence for voters’ trustworthiness. Second, despite Brennan's claim to the contrary, an epistocracy may not reduce people’s exposure to an undue risk of harm. Third, Brennan overlooks (...) the fact that citizens are not equally affected by ‘bad voting.’ Fourth, far from being a defence of libertarian ideals, Brennan's argument supports paternalism. (shrink)

In this article, we tackle the epistemological and ethical issues related to the use of race concepts in the genomics of sport performance and sport-related concussion (SRC). In the first part of the article, we show how the concept of race is ubiquitous in scientific literature, besides the fact that ‘race’ as other analogous population descriptors like ‘ancestry’ and ‘continent’ carry ancestral genetic heterogeneity and therefore they cannot be used to infer any kind of genetic or physiological property. Then, we (...) investigate the question of whether genomics research focusing on racial categories and race-specific genes of sport performance and of risk of health outcomes due to repetitive head impacts (RHI) is justified from an epistemological point of view, arguing that it is not; we show that the evidence supporting the existence of genetic variants determining an elite athlete status or a predisposition to health outcomes after SRC is scarce, and the use of racial categories (e.g. African or Black, Caucasian or White, Asian, etc.) as proxies for genetic variants associated with an elite athlete status/a predisposition to health outcomes after SRC is ill-conceived. In the second part of the article, we analyze the main ethical issues concerning the reification of race concepts in sport genomics, also considering the more general issue of the ethical and social impact of the use of a genetic framework in the explanation of individual differences in sport performance and SRC. (shrink)

Contrary to what has been asserted or implied by Mach and more recent writers, the law of illumination and the study of photometry were not ignored in the years between Kepler's first enunciation of the former in 1609 and Bouguer's Essai on the latter in 1729. The law of illumination was in fact denied in 1613 by Aguilonius. It was probably rediscovered independently and certainly reformulated in more modern terms by Mersenne and Castelli in 1634, and by Boulliau in 1638. (...) It was again formulated and this time demonstrated empirically by Montanari no later than 1676, and possibly as early as 1634 by Castelli. Although neither the law nor photometry were major concerns before Bouguer, they were not completely neglected either. (shrink)

Caster Semenya is done with track and field. At 29, her hopes for a continued career as a professional middle-distance runner are dashed. After her case against International Association for Athletics Federation 1 was dismissed by the Court for Arbitration of Sport on 1 May 2019, she has switched to football later in the year.1 Semenya’s case may have come to its legal conclusion, however it has generated an aporia regarding the binary classification in athletics, which has yet to be (...) solved.2 It is time the implications of the fair equality of opportunity principle as a normative basis for the construction of categories in sport are taken seriously to move forward the debate on unfair advantages in sport. Loland conditionally justifies restricting the women’s category to athletes with testosterone levels below a certain threshold, on the basis of the FEO principle, and of a distinction between stable and dynamic inequalities between athletes. …. (shrink)

In this paper we address the ethical challenges of research on cytoplasmic hybrid embryos, or “cybrids”. The controversial pronouncement of the UK’s Human Embryology and Fertilisation Authority of September 2007 on the permissibility of this area of research is the starting point of our discussion, and we argue in its favour. By a rigorous definition of the entities at issue, we show how the terms “chimera” and “hybrid” are improper in the case of cybrids, and how their use can bias (...) the debate creating moral prejudices. After analysing the scientific aspects of cybrids research and sketching out current alternatives, we enter the ethical debate, starting from the premise that research on early human embryos is ethically permissible under some circumstances. We emphasise how research on cybrids has positive consequences in terms of scientific and therapeutic applications, since it allows the derivation of human embryonic stem cells genetically tailored to the somatic cell donor. Such cell lines offer a unique in vitro model both for studies of human pathogenesis and for drug screening and discovery. Research on cybrids also circumvents the problem of the scarcity of human oocytes and their ethically dubious donation. Finally, we object to the most common arguments against cybrids research, that is, moral repugnance, the slippery slope argument, the appeal to “nature”, and the unfair distribution of economical resources. (shrink)