This timely Research Handbook examines the key challenges for the governance of biomedicine and the life sciences. It explores the impact of significant political, technological and ecological developments on international governance and considers ethics in times of global crisis.Leading experts discuss the ways in which digitalization and AI have disrupted communication and knowledge infrastructure, while highlighting the threats posed by climate change and biodiversity loss to ec...

This book is a philosophically-oriented introduction to bioethics. It offers the reader an overview of key debates in bioethics relevant to various areas including; organ retrieval, stem cell research, justice in healthcare and issues in environmental ethics, including issues surrounding food and agriculture. The book also seeks to go beyond simply describing the issues in order to provide the reader with the methodological and theoretical tools for a more comprehensive understanding of cu...

The history of human rights suggests that individuals should be empowered in their natural, political, political, social and economic vulnerabilities. States within the international arena hold each other responsible for doing just that and support or interfere where necessary. States are to protect these essential human vulnerabilities, even when this is not a matter of self-interest. This function of human rights is recognized in contexts of intervention, genocide, humanitarian aid and d...

This introduction to human dignity explores the history of the notion from antiquity to the nineteenth century, and the way in which dignity is conceptualised in non-Western contexts. Building on this, it addresses a range of systematic conceptualisations, considers the theoretical and legal conditions for human dignity as a useful notion and analyses a number of philosophical and conceptual approaches to dignity. Finally, the book introduces current debates, paying particular attention to...

This book is a collection of twelve essays devoted to Michael Boylan's important work in moral philosophy,A Just Society. The collection is thematically organized to mirror Boylan's own volume, so the first half explores fundamental issues of justification in ethics while the second half focuses on issues involving ethical discourse, social justice, and the moral foundations of public policy. In their critical and engaging essays, the authors challenge many of the original and con...

What are our obligations towards future generations who stand to be harmed by the impact of today’s environmental crises? This book explores ecological sustainability as a human rights issue and examines what our long-term responsibilities might be.This interdisciplinary collection of chapters provides a basis for understanding the debates on the provision of sustainability for future generations from a diverse set of theoretical standpoints. Covering a broad range of perspectives ...

Rights-based ethics offer a conceptual framework to address the complex ethical issues of our time. This volume combines systematic and historical perspectives on rights-based ethics with discussions of a broad range of topics in applied ethics to assess the achievements and limits of rights-based approaches.The normative concepts of fundamental human rights and human dignity play an essential role in considerations about global justice and international politics. However, these co...

Many educational practices are based upon ideas about what it means to be human. Thus education is conceived as the production of particular subjectivities and identities such as the rational person, the autonomous individual, or the democratic citizen. Beyond Learning asks what might happen to the ways in which we educate if we treat the question as to what it means to be human as a radically open question; a question that can only be answered by engaging in education rather than as a que...

Drawing upon philosophy and social theory, Social Theory of International Politics develops a theory of the international system as a social construction. Alexander Wendt clarifies the central claims of the constructivist approach, presenting a structural and idealist worldview which contrasts with the individualism and materialism which underpins much mainstream international relations theory. He builds a cultural theory of international politics, which takes whether states view each othe...

Not available since the 1980s, this up-dated edition by the leading political philosopher, John Gray, outlines his new position on Hayek. In a substantial new chapter, Gray assesses how far the historical development of the last ten years can be deployed in a critique of Hayek's thought. His reassessment is not only a provoking study of a classical philosopher. It is also a timely contribution to the debate over the future of conservatism, as Gray argues that Hayekian liberalism - 'the mos...

Is there a future for sociology? To many, sociology seems to have lost its way. Born of the ideas of Auguste Comte in the nineteenth century, sociology established itself as 'the science of modernity', linked to a progressive view of history. Yet today the idea of progress has more or less collapsed; with its demise, some say, sociological thought has moved to the margins of contemporary intellectual culture.In this book the author challenges such an interpretation, showing that so...

This book examines critical theories in education research from various points of view in order to critique the relations of power and knowledge in education and schooling practices. It addresses social injustices in the field of education, while at the same time questioning traditional standards of critical theory. Drawing on recent social and lit