Podcasts about St Cross

SUBSCRIBE, RATE & REVIEW on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3tfyyDP Google Podcasts: http://bit.ly/3AbB1St Mixcloud: http://www.mixcloud.com/chriscaggs PodOmatic Podcast: http://www.shakedownradio.com iHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/3ss7wr2 Stitcher Radio: https://bit.ly/2W9aVuH Castbox: https://bit.ly/3maXTcb Tune In Radio: https://bit.ly/3qTGsPF iVoox: https://bit.ly/3c7O771 Follow Chris Caggs on Social Media: Facebook Friend Page www.facebook.com/chriscaggs Facebook Fan Page www.facebook.com/chriscaggsradio Twitter www.twitter.com/chriscaggs Instagram www.instagram.com/chriscaggs TikTok @ChrisCaggs Hashtag #ChrisCaggs #ShakedownRadio Over the span of 25 Years across 15 Radio Stations - Chris Caggs has been on air at: Groove FM 96.9FM & 94.5FM - Sydney Groove FM 97.3FM - Brisbane DJ-FM 87.6FM -  Sydney 2RDJ 88.1FM - Sydney 2NSB 99.3FM - Northside Radio  Sydney Pump FM 99.3FM - Sydney 2ICR Radio - Sydney Mix It Up Radio - Brisbane STR8OUT Radio - Melbourne Mixxbosses Radio - Sydney Urban Movement Radio - Brisbane Liquid Radio - Sunshine Coast - Dance Starter FM - Sydney - Dance Tune 1 Radio - Perth - Dance 4PLAY Radio - Queensland - Dance V1Radio - Melbourne - Dance Tracklist 1. The Lovefreekz x Nick Reach Up - If You Want Me To Stay (Holmes John Remix) 2. James Alexandr feat Penelope - Attention  3. Jolyon Petch - Spinning Around (Club Mix) 4. Toni Pearen & Pee Wee Ferris - Whatever Will Be Will Be (Pipi Le Oui Diskotec Remix) 5. Luude & Issey Cross feat Moby - Oh My 6. Riton x Kah Lo x Gee Lee - Fake ID (Coke & Rum Remix Radio Edit Clean) 7. Audien & Codeko feat JT Roach - Antidote (Radio Edit) 8. Colour Castle, Disco Shift, Fleur De Mur - Cruel Summer (Colour Castle Extended Bananarama Version) 9. Lil Wayne - A Milli (SIDEPIECE Remix) 10. The Antipodeans & Greg Gould - Come Said The Boy (Radio Edit) 11. OFFAIAH - Something In Your Eyes (Extended Mix) 12. St Cross feat Seann Miley Moore - All My Lovers (James Alexandr Extended Remix) 13. Needs No Sleep - The Player (Extended Mix) 14, Rain Radio - Lighters Up (Extended Mix)

SUBSCRIBE, RATE & REVIEW on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3tfyyDPGoogle Podcasts: http://bit.ly/3AbB1StMixcloud: http://www.mixcloud.com/chriscaggsPodOmatic Podcast: http://www.shakedownradio.comiHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/3ss7wr2Stitcher Radio: https://bit.ly/2W9aVuHCastbox: https://bit.ly/3maXTcbTune In Radio: https://bit.ly/3qTGsPFiVoox: https://bit.ly/3c7O771Follow Chris Caggs on Social Media:Facebook Friend Page www.facebook.com/chriscaggsFacebook Fan Page www.facebook.com/chriscaggsradioTwitter www.twitter.com/chriscaggsInstagram www.instagram.com/chriscaggsTikTok @ChrisCaggsHashtag #ChrisCaggs #ShakedownRadioOver the span of 25 Years across 15 Radio Stations - Chris Caggs has been on air at:Groove FM 96.9FM & 94.5FM - SydneyGroove FM 97.3FM - BrisbaneDJ-FM 87.6FM -  Sydney2RDJ 88.1FM - Sydney2NSB 99.3FM - Northside Radio  SydneyPump FM 99.3FM - Sydney2ICR Radio - SydneyMix It Up Radio - BrisbaneSTR8OUT Radio - MelbourneMixxbosses Radio - SydneyUrban Movement Radio - BrisbaneLiquid Radio - Sunshine Coast - DanceStarter FM - Sydney - DanceTune 1 Radio - Perth - Dance4PLAY Radio - Queensland - DanceV1Radio - Melbourne - DanceTracklist1. The Lovefreekz x Nick Reach Up - If You Want Me To Stay (Holmes John Remix)2. James Alexandr feat Penelope - Attention 3. Jolyon Petch - Spinning Around (Club Mix)4. Toni Pearen & Pee Wee Ferris - Whatever Will Be Will Be (Pipi Le Oui Diskotec Remix)5. Luude & Issey Cross feat Moby - Oh My6. Riton x Kah Lo x Gee Lee - Fake ID (Coke & Rum Remix Radio Edit Clean)7. Audien & Codeko feat JT Roach - Antidote (Radio Edit)8. Colour Castle, Disco Shift, Fleur De Mur - Cruel Summer (Colour Castle Extended Bananarama Version)9. Lil Wayne - A Milli (SIDEPIECE Remix)10. The Antipodeans & Greg Gould - Come Said The Boy (Radio Edit)11. OFFAIAH - Something In Your Eyes (Extended Mix)12. St Cross feat Seann Miley Moore - All My Lovers (James Alexandr Extended Remix)13. Needs No Sleep - The Player (Extended Mix)14, Rain Radio - Lighters Up (Extended Mix)

SUBSCRIBE, RATE & REVIEW on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3tfyyDPGoogle Podcasts: http://bit.ly/3AbB1StMixcloud: http://www.mixcloud.com/chriscaggsPodOmatic Podcast: http://www.shakedownradio.comiHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/3ss7wr2Stitcher Radio: https://bit.ly/2W9aVuHCastbox: https://bit.ly/3maXTcbTune In Radio: https://bit.ly/3qTGsPFiVoox: https://bit.ly/3c7O771Follow Chris Caggs on Social Media:Facebook Friend Page www.facebook.com/chriscaggsFacebook Fan Page www.facebook.com/chriscaggsradioTwitter www.twitter.com/chriscaggsInstagram www.instagram.com/chriscaggsTikTok @ChrisCaggsHashtag #ChrisCaggs #ShakedownRadioOver the span of 25 Years across 15 Radio Stations - Chris Caggs has been on air at:Groove FM 96.9FM & 94.5FM - SydneyGroove FM 97.3FM - BrisbaneDJ-FM 87.6FM -  Sydney2RDJ 88.1FM - Sydney2NSB 99.3FM - Northside Radio  SydneyPump FM 99.3FM - Sydney2ICR Radio - SydneyMix It Up Radio - BrisbaneSTR8OUT Radio - MelbourneMixxbosses Radio - SydneyUrban Movement Radio - BrisbaneLiquid Radio - Sunshine Coast - DanceStarter FM - Sydney - DanceTune 1 Radio - Perth - Dance4PLAY Radio - Queensland - DanceV1Radio - Melbourne - DanceTracklist1. The Lovefreekz x Nick Reach Up - If You Want Me To Stay (Holmes John Remix)2. James Alexandr feat Penelope - Attention 3. Jolyon Petch - Spinning Around (Club Mix)4. Toni Pearen & Pee Wee Ferris - Whatever Will Be Will Be (Pipi Le Oui Diskotec Remix)5. Luude & Issey Cross feat Moby - Oh My6. Riton x Kah Lo x Gee Lee - Fake ID (Coke & Rum Remix Radio Edit Clean)7. Audien & Codeko feat JT Roach - Antidote (Radio Edit)8. Colour Castle, Disco Shift, Fleur De Mur - Cruel Summer (Colour Castle Extended Bananarama Version)9. Lil Wayne - A Milli (SIDEPIECE Remix)10. The Antipodeans & Greg Gould - Come Said The Boy (Radio Edit)11. OFFAIAH - Something In Your Eyes (Extended Mix)12. St Cross feat Seann Miley Moore - All My Lovers (James Alexandr Extended Remix)13. Needs No Sleep - The Player (Extended Mix)14, Rain Radio - Lighters Up (Extended Mix)

The Passion of Jesus as told by the clergy of St. Cross.

Vestas wind turbine blade workers occupied their factory at St Cross, Newport, on 20 July 2009. They demanded that the Government nationalise Vestas Isle of White factories and continue production of turbine blades. This pamphlet brings together that story through the eyes of Vestas workers and their supporters. Buy a paper copy, download a PDF, and more, at: https://workersliberty.org/vestas-pamphlet Listen to a talk on the topic, from a decade later: https://soundcloud.com/workers-liberty/the-vestas-wind-turbine-factory-occupation This audio was released for a reading group on the topic. More: https://www.facebook.com/events/995844177636361

The script for today's homily is written by Wendy Barrie Feast of St. Francis Matthew 11:25–30 Be sure to view on our site to see the clergy playing their roles: https://www.stcross.org/podcasts/sermons/

James 3:1-12 Mark 8:27-38

As part of the St Cross College Shorts podcast series, Fellow and Ashmolean Museum Curator An van Camp discusses the Young Rembrandt exhibition with Stanley Ulijaszek, in October 2020.

As part of the St Cross College Shorts podcast series, Fellow and Ashmolean Museum Curator An van Camp discusses the Young Rembrandt exhibition with Stanley Ulijaszek, in October 2020.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the discovery in 1922 of Tutankhamun's 3000 year old tomb and its impact on the understanding of ancient Egypt, both academic and popular. The riches, such as the death mask above, were spectacular and made the reputation of Howard Carter who led the excavation. And if the astonishing contents of the tomb were not enough, the drama of the find and the control of how it was reported led to a craze for 'King Tut' that has rarely subsided and has enthused and sometimes confused people around the world, seeking to understand the reality of Tutankhamun's life and times. With Elizabeth Frood Associate Professor of Egyptology, Director of the Griffith Institute and Fellow of St Cross at the University of Oxford Christina Riggs Professor of the History of Visual Culture at Durham University and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford And John Taylor Curator at the Department of Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum Producer: Simon Tillotson

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the discovery in 1922 of Tutankhamun's 3000 year old tomb and its impact on the understanding of ancient Egypt, both academic and popular. The riches, such as the death mask above, were spectacular and made the reputation of Howard Carter who led the excavation. And if the astonishing contents of the tomb were not enough, the drama of the find and the control of how it was reported led to a craze for 'King Tut' that has rarely subsided and has enthused and sometimes confused people around the world, seeking to understand the reality of Tutankhamun's life and times. With Elizabeth Frood Associate Professor of Egyptology, Director of the Griffith Institute and Fellow of St Cross at the University of Oxford Christina Riggs Professor of the History of Visual Culture at Durham University and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford And John Taylor Curator at the Department of Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum Producer: Simon Tillotson

St. Cross Day. Gospel: Luke 15:1-10.

St. Cross Day. Gospel: Luke 15:1-10.

We all need balance in our lives! We are busy! So how do we add some rest into the mix? Does God think rest is important?

Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost

In this St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, Dr Nina Hallowell discusses the importance of therapeutic optimism in clinical research. Hope, or therapeutic optimism, is an important aspect of the provision and experience of medical care. The role of therapeutic optimism in clinical research has been briefly discussed within the empirical and bioethics literature, but the concept, and whether it can be transferred from care to research and from patients to clinicians, has not been fully investigated. Interviews with clinical staff involved in a peripartum randomised placebo-controlled trial– the Got-it trial - revealed that therapeutic optimism has an important role to play facilitating clinical staff engagement with trial work. In this paper I will unpack the concept of therapeutic optimism in trial settings, describe how it is sustained in practice and outline some of the ethical risks and benefits.

In this episode, Professor Neil Levy assesses objections to cognitive enhancement and argues that the means don't matter from a moral perspective: what matters is how the intervention affects cognition. According to the parity principle, the means whereby an agent intervenes in his or her mind, or the minds of others, is irrelevant when it comes to assessing the moral status of the intervention: what matters is how the intervention affects the agent. In this paper, I set out the case for the parity principle, before defending it from recent objections due to Christoph Bublitz and Reinhard Merkel. Bublitz and Merkel argue that direct interventions bypass agents’ psychological capacities and therefore produce states over which agents have less control and which are less reflective of who they genuinely are. I argue that direct interventions that are processed psychologically may be no less destructive of control or of the degree to which the resulting states are reflective of the agent, and, further, that direct interventions may be morally unproblematic. Given that right now and for the foreseeable future indirect interventions threaten our autonomy far more often and far more deeply than direct, the distinction between direct and indirect interventions doesn’t even provide a useful heuristic for assessing when an intervention into the mind/brain is problematic.

In this seminar we explore why human interventions such as euthanasia or use of biotechnologies are controversial. Is it wrong to intervene in biological processes? Human intervention in the living world gives rise to controversies where scientists are criticised for working on biotechnologies and physicians for ending life when a terminally ill patient is experiencing unmanageable suffering. This lecture will explain the perpetuation of political controversies by showing that scientific and moral assessments of human intervention in the living world are unsolvable because they are based on cognitive biases. Looking at case studies of such controversial issues (end of life intervention, GMOs and synthetic biology debates), my analysis will focus on the apparent clarity of the double contrast between natural beings and artificial objects on the one hand, and risk and realms of uncertainty on the other. The interesting point here is that the relationship between scientific expertise and political issues is clearly related to these implicit epistemological prerequisites.

Dr Jonathan Pugh discusses the morally permissibility of non-consensual medical interventions. Although a central tenet of medical ethics holds that it is permissible to perform a medical intervention on a competent individual only if that individual has given informed consent to that intervention, there are some circumstances in which it seems that this moral requirement may be trumped. For instance, in some circumstances, it might be claimed that it is morally permissible to carry out certain sorts of non-consensual interventions on competent individuals for the purpose of infectious disease control (IDC). In this paper, I shall explain how one might defend this practice, and consider the extent to which similar considerations might be invoked in favour of carrying out non-consensual medical interventions for the purposes of facilitating rehabilitation amongst criminal offenders. Having considered examples of non-consensual interventions in IDC that seem to be morally permissible, I shall describe two different moral frameworks that a defender of this practice might invoke in order to justify such interventions. I shall then identify five desiderata that can be used to guide the assessments of the moral permissibility of non-consensual IDC interventions on either kind of fundamental justification. Following this analysis, I shall consider how the justification of non-consensual interventions for the purpose of IDC compares to the justification of non-consensual interventions for the purpose of facilitating criminal rehabilitation, according to these five desiderata. I shall argue that the analysis I provide suggests that a plausible case can be made in favour of carrying certain sorts of non-consensual interventions for the purpose facilitating rehabilitation amongst criminal offenders.

What are the words that describe the relationship that we yearn and strive to have with God and with one another? How can we, as St Cross, focus on these words for this year as we intentionally drink and share the living water given to us through our Lord Jesus Christ?

Ruthe Farmer explains how her award-winning work to encourage women and girls to embrace technology can be traced back to her student days at Oxford. She describes how she became familiar with the language of business and social entrepreneurship thanks to her MBA at the Saïd Business School. Her studies complemented her extensive experience working for women’s organisations in the United States, her home country. Farmer, who works for the National Center for Women and Information Technology based in Colorado, has recently been recognised for her achievements. She won the British Council’s Education UK Alumni Award 2015 for Social Impact for alumni from the US. She shares her delight at winning the prize and talks about the British Council’s growing alumni initiative in this podcast interview. Music by Setuniman http://tinyurl.com/Setuniman-sounds

In this talk, Dr Josh Shepherd examines the claim that self-consciousness is highly morally significant. Many share an intuition that self-consciousness is highly morally significant. Some hold that self-consciousness significantly enhances an entity’s moral status. Others hold that self-consciousness underwrites the attribution of so-called personhood (or full moral status) to self-conscious entities. I examine the claim that self-consciousness is highly morally significant, such that the fact that an entity is self-conscious generates strong moral reasons to treat that entity in certain ways (reasons that, for example, make killing such entities a very serious matter). I analyse four arguments in support of such a claim, and find all four wanting. We lack good reasons to think self-consciousness is highly morally significant.

This talk probes into the ethical landscape of contemporary TLMPs in liberal democratic states, and examines issues such as migrants' rights. At the beginning of the 21st century, temporary labour migration programmes (TLMP) have (re)emerged and expanded in a number of advanced industrialised countries. TLMPs are not a new phenomenon, with the use of large-scale guestworker schemes in Western Europe and the United States during the 1950s-1960s. Advocates of contemporary TLMPs argue that ‘carefully designed’ schemes can deliver ‘triple wins’ for host countries, home countries and migrants and their families. Yet, the case for these ‘new and improved’ TLMPs is not without critics, who maintain that these schemes continue to have highly exploitative elements built into them. This talk probes into the ethical landscape of contemporary TLMPs in liberal democratic states. I examine the various attempts to justify the array of restrictions on migrants’ employment and social rights under TLMPs. In particular, I provide a critique of a relatively influential argument that has emerged in recent years, which puts forward a purported trade-off between the numbers of migrants admitted and the rights granted to them.

What, if anything, is wrong with swearing? And, what exactly are we doing when we try to swear inoffensively? I begin by reflecting on why we swear, why it is widely deemed offensive, and some of the benefits of swearing. I then turn to the widespread practice of substituting asterisks for letters (and analogous spoken strategies) in an effort to swear without causing offence, and consider what could possibly explain how such a practice succeeds (if it does) in making swear words less offensive. I argue that – to the extent that swearing is offensive – there is no plausible philosophical story according to which this practice succeeds in rendering swearing inoffensive, and that some accounts of why swearing is offensive entail that asterisked swearing actually magnifies the badness of swearing. I conclude that, in so far as we are willing to view asterisked swearing as inoffensive, we should not be offended by swearing. (This talk will contain swearing. However, since the speaker hopes to convince you that swearing is less offensive than it is often taken to be, you should not let this dissuade you from coming along.)

Dr Richard Hain, Consultant in Paediatric Palliative Medicine, explores the difficulties in rationally explaining the value of an infant’s life. Anyone who has been present at the memorial service for an infant knows that, in practice, people accord the life of a child a special value. Those caring for infants, like those caring for children who are cognitively impaired, intuitively respond to their patients as though they were particularly precious, and feel an obligation to care for infants - that is, to act in their interests - that expresses that value. Principlism is the dominant paradigm in medical ethics. It explains the value of life using both a utilitarian subjectivist account (there is a rational sense in which the individual’s continued existence will be in her own interests and/or those of others) and a deontological objective one (there are ‘contracts’ or ’ties of family’ whose nature, other things being equal, expresses an obligation to act in the interests of the individual, independently of any impact on the interests of others). Both accounts are problematic in infants. Infants reason differently from adults, and they are by definition dependent on others. They apprehend the universe in a way that is meaningful, but probably does not link moral action with outcome. The infant therefore values its life in the moment, but does not have an interest in its continuing existence in the way a subjectivist account of intrinsic value requires. An obligation to act in the interests of an infant is complicated by the fact that those interests must be articulated by adults. Adults can be owner, carer, proxy or advocate for the infant, and may speak in all four voices simultaneously. It is often impossible in practice (it may not even be possible in principle), to explicate the interests of adults from those of an infant in the way the objective deontological account of an infant’s value requires. In order to explain rationally the value of an infant’s life, we need to consider a different account of interests; one that does not depend on characteristics such a reason and independence that infants definitionally do not possess, but instead flows from characteristics such as meaning-making and relationality that they self-evidently do.

This talk explores the central argument in Boylan's recent book, 'Natural Human Rights: A Theory' Arguing against the grain of most contemporary writers on the subject, I contend that an examination of the structure and function of human action allows one to bridge the fact/value chasm to create binding positive duties that recognize fundamental human rights claims. This theoretical argument is then suggestively applied to contemporary social and political problems in the world.

Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian and Fellow of Balliol, and Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church and Fellow of St Cross.

Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian and Fellow of Balliol, and Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church and Fellow of St Cross.

The Gift of the Cross, blessing and gratitude.

In this St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, Jeremy Howick defends Grünbaum’s work on placebos. He outlines a need to re-examine policies on ethics of placebos, and revise our estimations of their effects in both clinical practice and trials. There is currently no widely accepted definition of ‘placebos’. Yet debates about the ethics of placebo use (in routine practice or clinical trials) and the magnitude (if any!) of ‘placebo’ effects continue to rage. Even if not formally required, a definition of the ‘placebo’ concept could inform these debates. Grünbaum’s 1981/1986 characterization of the ‘placebo’ has been cited as the best attempt thus far, but has not been widely accepted. Here we argue that criticisms of Grünbaum’s scheme are either exaggerated, unfounded or based on misunderstandings. We propose that, with three modifications, Grünbaum’s scheme can be defended. Grünbaum argues that all interventions can be classified by a therapeutic theory into ‘incidental’ and ‘characteristic’ features. ‘Placebos’, then, are treatments whose characteristic features do not have effects on the target disorder. To Grünbaum whether a treatment counts as a placebo or not is relative to a target disorder, and a therapeutic theory. We modify Grünbaum’s scheme in the following way. First, we add ‘harmful intervention’ and ‘nocebo’ categories; second, we insist that what counts as a ‘placebo’ (or nonplacebo) be relativized to patients; and third, we issue a clarification about the overall classification of an intervention. We argue that our modified version of Grünbaum’s scheme resists published criticisms. Our work warrants a re-examination of current policies of the ethics of placebos in both clinical practice and clinical trials, and a revised empirical estimation of ‘placebo’ effects, both in the context of clinical trials and clinical practice.

Tom Walker discusses autonomy and informed consent to medical treatment There are two features of consenting to medical treatment that have been little explored in the extensive literature on this topic. The first is that the requirement to obtain consent is conditional in the following sense – we only need to obtain consent for those things that are both wrong if done without consent, and that we want or have reason to do. The second is that whilst many patients in their interactions with doctors are initially uninformed, this does not always prevent them from choosing to have, or not to have, possible treatments. In this paper I explore the implications of these two features for the idea that doctors ought to provide information to patients about the treatments they propose. I will argue that these features create a serious problem for the widely held idea that it would be wrong, because it would fail to respect his autonomy, to give a competent patient medical treatment without his valid consent (where this refers to a voluntary and informed agreement to have the treatment). As such the requirement to respect autonomy will not give any reason for doctors to provide information in these cases; in fact on at least some accounts of autonomy the obligation to respect autonomy would give them a reason not to provide that information. The paper then goes on to consider some ways in which the obligation to provide information about potential treatments could be supported.

Dean John Incent or Innocent, 16th century lawyer and clergyman, and founder of Berkhamsted School.  He was lawyer to the Bishop of Winchester, Richard Foxe, and master of the hospital of St Cross and Domus Dei in Portsmouth.   After … Continue reading →

I argue that the value of love in friendship illuminates issues about parental love and examine whether allowing same-sex couples access to adoption has any bearing on the moral status of prohibitions on same-sex couples using assisted reproduction. An emotional liberty rationale for broad access to IVF and other forms of assisted reproduction focuses on how narrow restrictions on such access prevent prospective parents from developing forms of parental love which are distinctively valuable (apart from prospective parents’ motives for reproducing). This rationale supports a general principle that it is pro tanto wrong to deliberately place obstacles in the way of opportunities to develop such forms of parental love – as when states prohibit same-sex couples from accessing IVF (or, for that matter, from accessing adoption). These normative claims do not require that such forms of parental love are very common in parent-child relationships. But how broadly are such distinctively valuable forms of parental love plausibly thought to extend, such that it is clear what would count as an obstacle to the development of this love? Answering this question is also important for addressing issues about whether the value of one sort of parental love can plausibly be substituted for another, as some have suggested in debates about IVF access.

If doping were done in a healthy and fair way, would it be OK? If so, all wrongs would lie in doping abuses involving health risks, deceit and unfairness. I argue that perhaps the doping sinner best exemplifies human dignity and existential authenticity. If doping would be done in a sufficiently healthy, candid, autonomous, wise and fair way, would doping be OK? If so, all wrongs would lie in doping abuses, namely when done with too much health risks, deceit, coercion, fecklessness and unfairness. I will briefly advocate this important point - already made by many others - only to proceed to the further argument that under certain circumstances, perhaps nobody can exemplify human(ist) dignity and existential(ist) authenticity better than that modern witch, the doping sinner. From a humanist-existentialist self-understanding, which I take to be the most plausible outlook on life, moral character and authenticity demand that one does not imagine one's biological constitution to be a responsibility-relieving excuse or a purpose-providing exhortation - no matter how psychologically gratifying that would be. Instead, our god- and nature-forsaken human condition should be acknowledged and if possible, testified of in practice. What better way to do so than to supplant some fundamental part of one's natural blueprint with an artefact of one's own volition, enabling oneself to realize an existence that is originally and authentically one's own? Affirming Leon Kass' dictum that "an untroubled soul in a troubling world is a shrunken human being", I concur that we must not manipulate our self-understanding so as to blind ourselves from discomforting but true aspects of the human predicament, for instance via a helping of Aldous Huxley's wellbeing-inducing drug Soma. However, in a second irony an analogy can be made between Soma and the more traditional opiate of religion. One could argue that by fabulating some (crypto-)creationist or teleological self-understanding and thinking one lives meaningfully by following the cues of one's biology, in a sense one dopes oneself into a inauthentic and morally unwarranted state of existential comfort. In a third and final irony, I again wholeheartedly affirm the widespread anti-enhancement worry that for all the health, ability, beauty and welfare that the human enhancement enterprise may bring, we will be enhancing ourselves into a state of increasingly acute existential perplexity. Indeed, as the determinants that shape and drive our existence become increasingly up for grabs, the plausibility of a prefabricated meaning to our existence crumbles, and our self-understanding becomes increasingly circular. I argue therefore that Bill McKibben is right in fearing that "should we ever escape our limits and become 'everything' we will become - nothing." However, I take this experience of existential vacuity to be at the heart of the human tragedy. I conclude that we must above all not see ourselves as creatures of Nature, God or Fortune who live meaningfully by executing their directives. Sharing the core values and concerns of Kass and McKibben, my conclusion is the polar opposite to theirs. We ought to openly affirm our god- and nature-forsaken condition and, ideally, wilfully estrange ourselves from our default biology to testify of our (unfortunate but true) condemnation to be free. To a significant extent, it would make us a Homo Ludens come full circle: living a life of our own devise, in bodies of our own devise.

The lecture describes why financial theory and teaching has ignored ethics, viewing moral values as irrelevant. We trace the reason for the neglect of ethics back to assumptions made by Modern Finance Theory, the en courant theory in finance. The neo-classical assumption that economic agents are rational profit maximizers has, over decades, become uncritically accepted as the norm and the truth about people's economic behavior in western-style capitalist economies. The lecture demonstrates how economic agents are assumed to be rational profit maximizing individuals has become the ethic i.e., economic agents ought to be rational, profit maximizing individuals. This resulting ethic is an impoverished value system, inadequate for an increasingly complex, global financial system. Modern finance theory is no more a complete version of truth than is Marxist dialectical materialism, or postmodernist deconstructionism. If a theory (MFT) can demobilize ethics in finance, then a theory also can activate ethics in finance. We need to add to the current popular theory of finance i.e. MFT so that it includes principles of both finance and ethics. One way to develop a new theory is to synthesize the three extant financial theories - the still dominant Modern Finance Theory; the emerging theory of behavioral finance; and the still inchoate theory of Islamic finance. Each of the three theories has its own strengths and focuses on one aspect of economic reality. Modern finance theory is robust on economic and quantitative modeling and forecasting. Behavioral finance describes and takes into account the human psychological basis of decision making in financial markets. Islamic finance theory is unapologetically directed by ethical values. Islamic finance focuses on finance as it is useful in supporting and helping the growth and development of the community and its people. Is it possible to have a financial theory that is the synthesis of the three perspectives of finance?

Self-harm using poison is a serious public health problem in Sri Lanka. As part of an effort to tackle the problem, clinical trials are used to identify effective antidotes. This talk describes the conduct of trials in this unusual and difficult context. Based on ethnographic material collected in rural hospitals in Sri Lanka between 2008 and 2009, this talk outlines three subject positions crucial to understanding the complexity of such clinical trials. At one level, research participants who have taken poison might be thought of as abjects, that is, stigmatised by actions that have placed them at the very limits of physical and social life. They have seriously harmed themselves in an act that often leads to death, marking the act as a suicide. Yet, this is the point when they are recruited into trials and become objects of research and experimentation. Participation in experimental research accords them particular rights mandated in international ethical guidelines for human subject research. Here the inexorable logic of trials and morality of care meet in circumstances of dire emergency and in such contexts, we argue, (bio)ethics is precarious.

How best to govern the field of assisted reproductive technologies? As UK and US authorities utilise different approaches, will the disparate structures and missions of these two bodies result in significantly different answers? In the past few decades, technologically advanced, democratic societies have struggled with the question of how best to govern the field of assisted reproductive technologies (ART). The UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) embody two approaches that highlight the degree of diversity in answering this question. While British politicians fashioned the HFEA as a statutory authority built upon ideals of deliberative democracy, the US has avoided federal regulations on ART, leaving the ASRM - a professional self-regulating society - with the sole responsibility for producing guidelines. Both bodies, however, utilize a deliberative committee to debate and determine rules for ART. Drawing on interviews with committee members of the HFEA and ASRM, this talk will focus on opening these largely opaque deliberative spaces. When examining ethical arguments for and against certain procedures, what reasons do members consider to be "good" reasons, and how do they legitimate such judgements? How do members conceive of the general public and how does this conception affect the role of public perspectives in deliberations and final decisions? Perhaps most importantly, do the disparate structures and missions of these two bodies result in significantly different answers to these questions?

Anthony Skelton examines possible reasons why philosophers have neglected to discuss children's welfare. After outlining and evaluating differing views, a rival account is presented. What makes a child's life go well? This paper examines two answers to this question, one put forward by Wayne Sumner in Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics and another by Richard Kraut in What is Good and Why: The Ethics of Well-being. The argument of this paper is that neither view is entirely satisfactory. A better account of the nature of children's welfare combines elements of both views. This paper is divided into five sections. The first section examines possible reasons why philosophers have neglected to discuss children's welfare. The second section outlines and evaluates Sumner's view. The third section outlines and evaluates Kraut's view. The fourth section sketches an account of children's welfare that rivals the accounts discussed in sections two and three. The final section summarizes my results.

Schaefer is currently reading for the B.Phil in Philosophy at Oxford. His interests lie in moral philosophy, especially applied ethics, as well as political philosophy and personal identity and he has a background in research ethics. Human embryonic stem cell research has been a lightning rod of controversy since the first embryonic stem cell lines were derived in 1998. Most of the controversy revolves around the provenance of the lines; the derivation of cells to develop an embryonic stem cell line usually results in destruction of the embryo, which some view as unethical. To alleviate such concerns, US guidelines prohibit federal funding for the derivation of such lines, and only fund further research on embryonic stem cell lines derived from excess embryos created during assisted reproductive treatment - embryos that would otherwise be discarded. Furthermore, the couple seeking assisted reproductive treatment must consent to the use of their excess embryos for stem cell research. However, current regulations do not require egg or sperm donors to give such consent, or even be informed of the potential for embryonic research. This is especially problematic for egg donors, who might have serious objections to stem cell research and therefore decline to go through the burdensome procedure of egg donation had they been informed of the potential research. We sought to determine the extent to which egg donors are in fact informed of potential research on resultant embryos, in the absence of requirements to do so. Sixty-six egg donor consent forms from US IVF clinics that donate at least some excess embryos for research were analyzed. We found that only a minority of donor forms mention the possibility of research, and an even smaller portion mention stem cell research. This can be corrected with the inclusion of succinct, non-technical language in egg donor consent forms.

Santorelli is a research fellow in the Zoology department, University of Oxford. He is interested in investigating the evolution of cooperative behaviors of macro and microorganisms. While discussions of cooperation and conflict are common in the study of animal and human societies, only within the last few decades we have realized that these acts also occur in more primitive, microscopic forms of life, such as amoebae or bacteria. The field of Sociobiology explains and investigates how social behaviour has resulted from evolution. Major focus is now aimed at extrapolating genetic and other experimental evidence from model studies on micro-organisms and insect societies to apply to human cooperation via research on economic-based game theory and evolutionary psychology. Unlike human societies, microbes are incapable of defining complex rules, laws, traditions and morals, yet they still manage to harbor social interactions in many different contexts, such as the division of labour, communication and kin recognition. Studying micro-organisms has given us an insight of what can be the genetic basis of many social behaviours and how cooperation can be stable even in the face of selfishness and cheating

Whose Ethics? Six Principles and Six Guidelines determinative of a superior ethics. Note: due to a technical issue the first ten minutes of the presentation are missing. In this exploratory presentation it will be suggested that perplexing moral dilemmas may be resolved effectively by employing a meta-ethics, consisting of six designated principles, which are multi-dimensional, critical and inclusive, and six theologically informed guidelines. The six principles to be discussed will be concerned with whether one's world view is bounded or unbounded; one's claims and assumptions are questioned or unquestioned; one's method of approach is inclusive or exclusive; one's enquiry is examined both logically and empirically with cross-checks; and whether open, two-way respectful exchange between researchers is followed. The six guidelines designated are transparency, honesty, integrity, truth, compassion and humility. These six factors, though drawn from the Christian concept of "Agape", the Greatest Love in the World, are considered worthwhile to adopt, since they are universal in form and capable of being agreed generally by all, regardless of religious persuasion. Above all, the interest of this paper is to seek valuable feedback from ethicists on thoughts/problems which may appear to stem from definitions/interpretations of religious and non-religious moral values.

Museum Ethics. The Museum world, like most professions, encounters various ethical problems. This short talk will consider the ethics of conservation and reconstruction, and of human remains, but will mostly discuss ethical problems associated with the acquisition of cultural property from other countries. Archaeologists are particularly concerned that the trade in antiquities leads to the looting of sites, and illegal export of valuable items. How far can British and American museums continue to maintain collections from the great ancient civilisations when they are unable to acquire important recent finds from other countries?

Professor Roger Trigg gives the St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, Trinity Term 2011.

Dr Adrian Walsh delivers a St Cross College Lecture entitled Good Intentions and Political Life: Against Virtue Parsimony. It is a commonplace that the good life and the good society are intimately interconnected. In order to maximize our chances of living well, we require a well-ordered polity; and this is one of the fundamental challenges of politics. Typically we regard a good society as, amongst other things, a society that has well designed institutions. One crucial aspect of the 'design challenge' concerns itself with the relationship between individual virtue and such political institutions. Is it is in general a good idea to prefer those institutions that demand from participating individuals a virtue-rich input? [...]

Dr Adrian Walsh delivers a St Cross College Lecture entitled Good Intentions and Political Life: Against Virtue Parsimony. It is a commonplace that the good life and the good society are intimately interconnected. In order to maximize our chances of living well, we require a well-ordered polity; and this is one of the fundamental challenges of politics. Typically we regard a good society as, amongst other things, a society that has well designed institutions. One crucial aspect of the 'design challenge' concerns itself with the relationship between individual virtue and such political institutions. Is it is in general a good idea to prefer those institutions that demand from participating individuals a virtue-rich input? [...]

Second leverhulme lecture in the 2010 series held in the Law Faculty, St Cross College in November.

Third and Final lecture in the 2010 Leverhulme Lecture series held in the Law Faculty, St Cross college in November 2010.

First of the Leverhulme Lectures held in the Law Faculty of St Cross College November 2010.

Colloquia Week 4 MT10: Moving goods and moving people: transport, infrastructure and economic transformation in Tanzania.

A St Cross Special Ethics Seminar - If we are to avoid annihilation, we must either alter our political institutions, severely restrain our technology or change our nature (22 February 2010).

Author of more than 30 books on global warming, Andrew Goudie charts the way forward in present crisis and explains how university research and advice can contribute to solving the problems that face our planet.

Students of St Cross college discuss living and studying at the college.