Contrasts the monster-creating escapades of mad scientists such as Frankenstein, Moreau, and Jekyll with the methods used by real scientists who try to help, not hurt, the world.

This festschrift collects a number of insightful essays by a group of accomplished Christian scholars, all of who have either worked with or studied under Hendrik Hart during his 35-year tenure as Senior Member in Systematic Philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto, Canada.

Although it is clear that the Chief Executive may be impeached while in office, it is generally thought that a sitting President cannot suffer criminal indictment while in office. There are two general arguments in support of this position. The first argument notes that criminal indictment of the President would so interfere with the duties of the office as to constitute a violation of the Constitution. The second argument simply refers to the express language of the Constitution providing that the (...) remedy for intolerable occupation of the office is impeachment and conviction. While the Constitution does not expressly preclude indictment and prosecution, it is argued that the Constitution only so allows upon impeachment and conviction. This essay aspires to more fully explore the two alleged constitutional prohibitions against the criminal indictment of the occupant of the Office of the President and to argue that each suffers sufficiently to render each doubtful as a ground for guaranteeing Presidential immunity. (shrink)

BackgroundLimited research has been conducted on explanations and understandings of biobanking for future genomic research in African contexts with low literacy and limited healthcare access. We report on the findings of a sub-study on participant understanding embedded in a multi-disease community health screening and biobank platform study known as ‘Vukuzazi’ in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted with research participants who had been invited to take part in the Vukuzazi study, including both participants and non-participants, and research staff that (...) worked on the study. The interviews were transcribed, and themes were identified from the interview transcripts, manually coded, and thematically analysed.ResultsThirty-nine individuals were interviewed. We found that the research team explained biobanking and future genomic research by describing how hereditary characteristics create similarities among individuals. However, recollection and understanding of this explanation seven months after participation was variable. The large volume of information about the Vukuzazi study objectives and procedures presented a challenge to participant recall. By the time of interviews, some participants recalled rudimentary facts about the genetic aspects of the study, but many expressed little to no interest in genetics and biobanking.ConclusionParticipant’s understanding of information related to genetics and biobanking provided during the consent process is affected by the volume of information as well as participant’s interest in the subject matter being discussed. We recommend that future studies undertaking biobanking and genomic research treat explanations of this kind of research to participants as an on-going process of communication between researchers, participants and the community and that explanatory imagery and video graphic storytelling should be incorporated into theses explanations as these have previously been found to facilitate understanding among those with low literacy levels. Studies should also avoid having broader research objectives as this can divert participant’s interest and therefore understanding of why their samples are being collected. (shrink)

The 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA) brought an end to conflict in Northern Ireland (NI). However, the peace process has not brought about the reconciliation which many had hoped for. The purpose of this article is to consider the role of ‘peace education’ and ‘integrated education’ in fostering reconciliation in Northern Ireland. My research contains the views of primary school and secondary school principals and head teachers to ‘peace education’ and ‘integrated education’ in Northern Ireland. The research is positioned in (...) the tradition of previous research literature and contemporary concerns relating to integrated education and the Shared Education Bill that was passed by the Northern Ireland Assembly on the 8th March 2016. My research adds to the emerging knowledge in the area and offers an insight on the attitudes of educators in Northern Ireland to ‘peace education’ and ‘integrated education’. It also engages with ‘interventionist research’. This paper is written from the point of view that genuine and effective ‘peace education’ requires ‘integrated education’ where children from diverse backgrounds are educated together every day in the same classrooms. (shrink)

The philosophy of George Herbert Palmer, by C. M. Bakewell.--Personal traits of George Herbert Palmer, by E. W. Hocking--Faculty minute on the life and service of Professor Palmer.

If I clone my brain, will my mind survive the destruction of my current brain, or would I rather be creating a twin with a different mind?

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:217 HUME'S IDEAS ABOUT NECESSARY CONNECTION 1. Introduction Hume asks, "What is our idea of necessity, when we say that two objects are necessarily connected together"? He later says that he has answered this question, but it is difficult to see what his answer is, or even to see precisely what the question was. Currently there are two main ways of understanding Hume's views about our idea of necessary (...) connection. These interpretations divide on the question whether Hume allows that we can speak meaningfully of an objective and necessary connection between two events. The one interpretation, which I will call epistemological, says that Hume does allow meaning to that phrase. On this view, justification is the only topic of Hume's negative message about necessary connection. We can mean what we say when we talk about necessary connection, but we cannot justify what we (meaningfully) say. That, according to this interpretation, is the negative outcome toward which Hume aims his investigation of the origin of our idea of necessary connection. He isn't denying we have that very idea; he is denying that its origin allows us to justify applying it to anything. The other interpretation, which I will call psychological, says that Hume does not allow meaning to the phrase, "an objective and necessary connection between two events." According to this interpretation, once we see the origin of our idea of necessary connection, we realize that we cannot mean by "necessary connection" what we thought we meant. Those words allow us to speak only of a certain 218 feeling in our minds, not of an objective feature of the world. Of course, the psychological interpretation partly resembles the epistemological one: it, too, denies that we can justify saying objective necessary connections exist. But on the psychological interpretation this follows a fortiori from the central negative claim, a claim which itself concerns meaning, not justification. In what follows, I will present these two interpretations more carefully and critically, and then I will advance my own. I think Hume was trying to express a view very different in kind from either of the two I've just mentioned. I think we can get a good idea of the kind of view Hume had by looking at Newton's treatment of gravitational force. Roughly, Newton thought that while there certainly are gravitational forces in objects, we can say nothing about them except that they are whatever it is that accounts for a specific set of observable regularities. Hume's views about necessary connection, or causal power, are roughly parallel. He does not doubt that we may speak meaningfully of objective necessary connections — rE we mean just some unknown quality in objects that underlies the constant conjunction of their sensible qualities. Inevitably we try to mean something more than this, but any such attempt is doomed to failure. Showing that we cannot mean something more is the point of investigating the origin of the "idea." I will be arguing that with this interpretation we can handle the sets of texts and problems that undercut the prevailing two interpretations, and reconcile those sets of texts with one another, despite their apparent inconsistency. This interpretation also has the advantage of attributing to Hume a view closely connected with a 219 distinctively eighteenth-century way of setting up these problems. Finally, I think the interpretation brings out nicely an instructive and central failing of Hume's views about necessary connection. 2. The Epistemological View Although there are hints of this kind of interpretation in other books, it is really articulated and defended only in Barry Stroud's book, 2 Hume. In what follows here, I mean to be sketching out and commenting on that interpretation. Hume wants to find out what our idea of necessary connection is. He conducts his investigation according to the dictum, "as we have no idea, that is not deriv'd from an impression, we must find some impression, that gives rise to this idea of necessity, if we assert we have really such an idea." (T 155) He argues, of course, that among our experiences of causes and effects, there are no impressions of necessary connection. Our experiences of... (shrink)

Intentionality is a term for a feature exhibited by many mental states and activities: being directed at objects. Two related things are meant by this. First, when one desires or believes or hopes, one always believes or desires or hopes something. Let’s assume that belief report 1) is true.

Human–wildlife coexistence is critical for sustainable and healthy ecosystems as well as to prevent human and wildlife suffering. In this paper, an intersubjective approach to human–wildlife interactions is proposed as a lens toward human decentering and emergent mutual evolution. The thesis is developed through a secondary data analysis of a research study on wildlife care and philosophical analysis using the work of Bernard Lonergan and Edmund Husserl. The study was conducted using the theory of transcendent pluralism, which is grounded in (...) human and ecological dignity, including the dignity of beyond‐human beings. Deeper interpretation of the original data suggests that human–wildlife interactions are mutually conscious, embodied, and hold spatial–temporal dimensions. The affective realm is an integral dimension of human–wildlife intersubjectivity. These findings inform an approach toward human–wildlife relations in which human persons and the beyond‐human multitude can all flourish in dignity. (shrink)

An introduction to ethical reasoning -- Comparative religious perspectives on war -- Just and unjust war in Shakespeare's Henry V -- Anticipating and preventing atrocities in war -- The CIA's original "social contract" -- The KGB: CIA's traditional adversary -- Espionage -- Covert action -- Interrogation -- Concluding reflections.

This paper proposes that the philosophy of Bernard Lonergan can provide insight into the challenge of integrating nursing theory, research and practice. The author discusses Lonergan's work in regard to reflective understanding, authenticity and the human person as a subject of consciously developing unity. This is followed by a discussion of two key elements in Lonergan's work that relate to nursing: the subject–object challenge of nursing inquiry and common sense vs. scientific knowledge. The author suggests that integration of nursing theory, (...) science and practice may be achieved through self-transcendence. (shrink)

Drawing upon Leigh Schmidt’s work on the “spiritual left,” this article presents a genealogy of the Black Spiritual Left featuring W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Howard Thurman, and Black Lives Matter activists Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors. Black Spiritual Leftists are defined as Black figures who separated from or were not part of Black churches and yet took on a spiritual orientation important to their progressive activism. Their faith is Spiritual, but not necessarily religious. In its most (...) recent manifestation, the Black Spiritual Left argues—in opposition to some Black Church pastors—that defense of Black lives requires respect for marginalized Black women, LGBTQ, and criminalized Black men and boys. (shrink)

This paper describes a project I have my students do that is based on parallels between the position Socrates describes himself as being in when addressing the charge that he corrupts the youth of Athens and the position critics of capitalism in the U.S. are in when they try to make the case that capitalism is a deeply flawed system that needs to be transformed into some­thing better. For the project, students are asked to give to three audiences of their (...) own choosing a presentation in which they argue against capitalism. The main aim of the project is to help students to appreciate that although the unexamined life may not be worth living, living an examined life can be difficult to do since it can feel a little like dying. (shrink)

Anselm’s ontological argument for the existence of God is examined. It is concluded that Anselm errs in assuming the greatest "thing" must be a sentient being. The existence of God, then, is not established by Anselm’s argument, and is concluded to be unlikely for other reasons as well, one being that a perfected sentient being would be a logical impossibility. An afterlife and personal immortality are not precluded however; these goals could be reached by future scientific means. For now cryonics (...) is advocated as a means to reach a more advanced future when death may be physically overcome. (shrink)

The clemency power of the U.S. President is limited to pardoning federal offences and expressly excludes federal impeachment from the pardon power. There is no explicit prohibition upon who might be the recipient of a presidential pardon. The U.S. Constitution does not expressly prohibit the President from issuing a self-pardon. If the American Framers placed only the one exception for impeachment, then arguably they meant to exclude all other conceivable exceptions. Yet, the very notion of such presidential self-forgiveness raises arguments (...) criticizing the possibility. Would not a selfpardon place the President above the law? In the process of investigating the various arguments denying and supporting the possibility, the parameters and the goals of issuing and accepting or rejecting a presidential pardon are developed along with alternative methods of achieving the same result as a self-pardon without actually issuing a self-pardon. Hence, the puzzle. The essay’s narrow and guarded conclusions are arrived at defeasibly. That is, the essay is driven by the force of the arguments over this paradoxical constitutional dilemma. The essay is intended as the beginning rather than a completion of the inquiry. (shrink)

The proper role of religious faith in the public life of a liberal democracy is one of the most important and controversial issues in the United States today. Since the publication in 1991 of his book Love and Power, Michael J. Perry's important writings on this issue have been among the most insightful. In this new book, Perry argues that political reliance on religious faith violates neither the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution nor, more broadly, the (...) morality of liberal democracy. Nonetheless, Perry argues, religious believers sometimes have good reasons to be wary about relying on religious beliefs in making political decisions. Along the way, Perry thoughtfully addresses three subjects at the center of fierce contemporary political debate: school vouchers, same-sex marriage, and abortion. (shrink)