With the recent report of a live birth after use of Mitochondrial replacement therapy, sometimes called ‘Three-parent IVF’, the clinical application of the technique is fast becoming a reality. While the United Kingdom allows the procedure under regulatory scrutiny, it remains effectively outlawed in many other countries. We argue that such prohibitions may violate individuals’ procreative rights, grounded in individuals’ interest in genetic affinity. The interest in genetic affinity was recently endorsed by Singapore’s highest court, reflecting an emphasis on the (...) importance of biological ties found across the globe. We apply that reasoning to make the case for a right to ‘Three-parent IVF’. (shrink)

This article discusses the concept of God with a focus on the translation of God in the Chinese and Yoruba religious contexts. Translating the word God is of the essence when comparing concepts of god. The translation of the Christian God as Olodumare misrepresents the latter. As suggested by Africanists, there should be appropriate translations for God, Olodumare, and other African gods. As a preliminary comparative attempt, this article presents a case on the introduction of God to the Chinese people. (...) The translation of God into Chinese reflects different views regarding the correlation between the Christian God and the Chinese gods. (shrink)

Property and political obligation are central issues of Locke's Two Treatises of Government. It is agreed that obligation is somehow contingent upon the government's protecting the property of its members. But ‘property’ in the Two Treatises had two meanings — in the state of nature usually referring to material possessions but in civil society meaning ‘life, liberty and estate’ — and its relationship to political obligation is complex. This complexity results from Locke's varying accounts of the movement from the state (...) of nature to civil society: he combined a traditional natural law justification of ownership with a legalist and semi-Aristotelian conception of the ends of and limitations on the state; he failed to provide a full account of the obligation of landless residents; he left unsettled difficulties inherent in the concept ‘property’ itself. Locke's notions of ‘trust’ and the ‘public good’ pointed to solutions to be worked out by future generations. (shrink)

After an outline of the macrorealistic solutions to the difficulties of the measurement theory, a new paradox is proposed and then discussed in the light of three different interpretations of quantum mechanics.

The concept of freedom is one which Hegel thought of very great importance; indeed, he believed that it is the central concept in human history. ‘Mind is free’, he wrote, ‘and to actualise this, its essence – to achieve this excellence – is the endeavour of the worldmind in world-history’. Those who already have an interest in Hegel will doubtless be interested in his views on a topic which he thought so important; on the other hand, the many philosophers who (...) are either indifferent to or hostile to Hegel may point out that it does not follow that, because the subject of freedom interested Hegel, his views about this subject are of general interest. It will be the aim of this paper to show that they are of general interest; in the meantime, it may be recalled that Isaiah Berlin has argued that Hegel's concept of freedom is one of a type, called by him the concept of positive freedom, which is ‘at the heart of many of the nationalist, communist, authoritarian and totalitarian creeds of our day’. It will surely be worth while to see to what extent this is true of Hegel, and to what extent Hegel's views about freedom are true. (shrink)

Hibbing et al. argue that the liberal–conservative continuum is (a) universal and (b) grounded in psychological differences in sensitivity to negative stimuli. Our commentary argues that both claims overlook the importance of context. We review evidence that the liberal–conservative continuum is far from universal and that ideological differences are contextually flexible rather than fixed.

Most advice for sharpening our thinking skills concerns how to avoid bad arguments. But argument is only one of the two basic forms of reasoning. The other is explanation, and it is equally susceptible to abuse. You may already be familiar with certain forms of explanatory malfeasance. One of the best known is circular explanation, in which the stated cause is just a different way of describing the effect. Here I'd like to introduce you to a less appreciated error of (...) explanation. To my knowledge it has no widely accepted name, but I call it ???the convincing explanation??? (shrink)

The analysis of a previous paper (see Ref. 1), in which the possibility of a Finslerian generalization of the equations of motion of gravitational field sources was demonstrated, is extended by developing the Finslerian generalization of the gravitational field equations on the basis of the complete contractionK = K lj lj of the Finslerian curvature tensorK l j hk (x, y). The relevant Lagrangian is constructed by the replacement of the directional variabley i inK by a vector fieldy i (x), (...) so that the notion of osculation may be regarded as the key concept on which the approach is based. The introduction of the auxiliary vector fieldy i (x) is shown to be of physical significance, for the field equations refer not only to the proper field variables but also to a special coordinate system associated withy i (x) through the Clebsch representation of the latter. The status of the conservation laws proves to be similar to that in the theory of the Yang-Mills field. By choosing a special Finslerian metric function we elucidate in detail the structure of the field equations in the static case. (shrink)

The author's purpose "is to examine the concept of intuition and to determine what part, If any, It should play in christian philosophy." (staff).

This volume presents new texts of Cicero's dialogues on political philosophy, De Re Publica and De Legibus, together with corrected versions of the editor's previously published editions of Cato Maior de Senectute and Laelius de Amicitia. The texts are based on a full reconsideration of the manuscript evidence and are presented in a clear and readable form.