Recent and ongoing developments in science and technology--such as the prevention and treatment of disease through genetics and the development of increasingly sophisticated computer systems with wide-ranging applications--hold out the promise of vastly improving the quality of human life, but they can also raise serious ethical, legal, and public policy questions. The thirteen essays in this volume address these questions and related issues from a variety of perspectives.

Recent and ongoing developments in science and technology--such as the prevention and treatment of disease through genetics and the development of increasingly sophisticated computer systems with wide-ranging applications--hold out the promise of vastly improving the quality of human life, but they can also raise serious ethical, legal, and public policy questions. The thirteen essays in this volume address these questions and related issues from a variety of perspectives.

This handbook provides academics and students with a comprehensive and holistic understanding of the phenomenon of innovation.

The essays in this volume examine the nature of human flourishing and its relationship to a variety of other key concepts in moral theory. Some of them trace the link between flourishing and human nature, asking whether a theory of human nature can allow us to develop an objective list of goods that are of value to all agents, regardless of their individual purposes or aims. Some essays look at the role of friendships or parent-child relationships in a good life, or seek to determine whether an ethical theory based on human flourishing can accommodate concern for others for their own sake. Other essays analyze the function of families or other social-political institutions in promoting the flourishing of individuals. Still others explore the implications of flourishing for political theory, asking whether considerations of human flourishing can help us to derive principles of social justice.

Whether ghosts, astrology or ESP, up to 80 per cent of the population believes in one or more aspects of the paranormal. Such beliefs are entertaining, and it is tempting to think of them as harmless. However, there is mounting evidence that paranormal beliefs can be dangerous - cases of children dying because parents rejected orthodox medicine in favour of alternative remedies, and 'psychics' who trade on the grief of the bereaved for personal profit and gain. Expenditure on the paranormal runs into billions of dollars each year. In Beyond Belief: Skepticism, Science and the Paranormal Martin Bridgstock provides an integrated understanding of what an evidence-based approach to the paranormal - a skeptical approach - involves, and why it is necessary. Bridgstock does not set out to show that all paranormal claims are necessarily false, but he does suggest that we all need the analytical ability and critical thinking skills to seek and assess the evidence for paranormal claims.

The essays in this volume examine the nature of virtue and its role in moral theory.