Chapter 8 explores Homeric religion as lived practice rather than abstract theology. It examines fate and choice, divine agents and human responsibility, and the rituals that connected communities to the sacred. The chapter discusses sacred places, prayer and sacrifice, and the afterlife, showing how epic memory uses the gods to think through uncertainty, mortality, and the limits of control.

Chapter 2 introduces the concept of Accountable Design and provides a detailed exploration of the terms accountable and design. It draws on extensive scholarship from human–computer interaction (HCI), design research, technology law, and science and technology studies. It advocates for a human-centred framing of accountability and explores the various challenges of achieving more accountable Clever Computing systems. It advances three broad framings of design within Accountable Design, namely, design as a critical lens to help speculate and reflect on futures we want to build; design as an instrumental lens to engineering solutions to problems; and design as creative practice and methods. Normative concerns around design as a regulatory tool are presented, such as the legitimacy of designers’ role alongside the speed and the nature of the enforcement of rules through design. Analysis focuses on how to reconcile legal and design perspectives by exploring how to account for legal values in human-centred technology design processes.

This chapter examines Aquinas’s account of will in God, showing how it builds on his teaching about knowledge. For Aquinas, will follows from intellect: as truth is the object of understanding, so good is the object of desire. Since God knows himself as perfect goodness, he necessarily delights in himself and thus has will essentially. God also wills creatures, yet not by necessity: creation is free, not compelled by divine nature or by anything external. Aquinas contrasts divine willing with human volition, stressing that while human will involves deliberation and change, God’s will is identical with his essence. Love, as the first movement of will, is also properly ascribed to God: God loves creatures insofar as he wills their existence and goodness, though unequally. The chapter also considers modern critiques – such as Kretzmann’s appeal to Dionysius and Swinburne’s theistic personalism – arguing that Aquinas avoids anthropomorphism by rooting will in divine simplicity.

This Introduction sets out the book’s central aim, and it also provides an overview of the main arguments with summaries of subsequent chapters. The starting point for this book is that there is a need to test a common assumption about the widespread use of techniques and procedures used to prevent the birth of a disabled child: that in a modern liberal state this practice is mainly or solely a matter of individual choice, and that the state itself is neutral. Further, it might be assumed that this neutral stance would allow the modern liberal state to maintain its stated commitment to equality, and that it provides a shield against any charge of eugenics. The Introduction begins to explain how this common assumption will be tested, by reference to interpretations of a neutral state intention. It also emphasises the book’s original contribution: while there is already extensive literature on the ethics of selecting against disability, this book is distinctively centred on an analysis of the state’s position.

This chapter examines how state neutrality can be assessed by reference to the provision of certain information, with a particular focus on information provided through prenatal testing programmes. The information that parents receive about prenatal tests and procedures, and about disability, can be powerfully influential, and can shape the choices that are made. The chapter reviews a number of reasons why the provision of information might not reflect a neutral position: the information might be overly negative about disability, for example, and there is a risk that women will be blamed for any choice that they make. Although it must be acknowledged that it is not possible to have an entirely neutral framework, the chapter compares and evaluates different options that are thought to support autonomy. The chapter also considers nudge theory in order to critically assess both the state’s intention and some limits to individual choice. Although many of these limits are ones that the state cannot entirely avoid, it is important to consider how they put the parents in a particularly vulnerable position, where there is a risk of manipulation.

This chapter addresses a number of foundational issues in relation to the position of the modern liberal state and the use of techniques and procedures that can prevent the birth of a disabled child. It begins by explaining why the traditional approach to the ethics of selective reproduction is insufficient as it usually sidelines or minimises the role of the state, following on from a common assumption that the state is neutral. It then considers the meaning of a liberal commitment to neutrality, so that we can analyse and question this common assumption. Among other things, the chapter claims that the relevance of the role of the state is not limited to the use of coercive measures, and that we should focus on state intention. Although neutrality can be a matter of degree, and while there are different interpretations of a neutral state intention, the chapter suggests that the position of the state can be assessed by reference to certain central liberal commitments. In particular, the chapter examines the importance of individual choice as an essential commitment of the modern liberal state, and considers what choice should be available to prospective parents.

This chapter begins by discussing the metaphysical foundations of Kant’s conception of moral character in the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant argues that we must ascribe to ourselves and others an intelligible character, distinct from our empirically observable, causally determined empirical character, to think of ourselves as transcendentally free or spontaneous. Our spontaneity is reflected in our capacity to make choices (Willkür), which is complemented by our ability to determine ourselves according to normative reasons rather than causal natural laws. The chapter traces the development of Kant’s conception of intelligible character, starting from a broad understanding of intelligible causality in the Critique of Pure Reason, and evolving in his later works toward a morally infused concept closely related to the idea of character as an individual’s unique, persistent identity. Kant refers to this morally charged intelligible character as “Gesinnung.” The chapter explores the etymology, semantics, and usage of this term in Kant’s writings and lectures from the 1770s to the 1790s.

The introduction to this volume advances its collective research agenda of renewing and advancing critical approaches to friendship and modern personal life. It outlines what a critical approach to friendship entails and delineates three central themes underlying debates in the social science literature on friendship: ideals, choice, and contexts. It both consolidates these debates and offers new directions for advancing them through a series of key interventions in critical approaches to friendship. These interventions are divided into the core thematic sections of the book: (1) critical intimacies, differences, and ruptures; (2) critical sociabilities beyond the private; and (3) critical relational junctures. The introduction also elucidates the thematic cohesion of the volume, emphasizing how the chapters are united by a commitment to ethnographic methods, interpretive theoretical approaches, and critical theory.

This chapter provides an analysis of the structure of love in Kierkegaard’s thought, which takes its most developed shape in Works of Love. This analysis will help us understand the four key elements of Kierkegaardian love that constitute it in its proper sense. The four elements of love are: repetition, time, commitment, and the good of the other. The overall argument in this chapter is that for Kierkegaard love necessitates a repeated, hence time-oriented, commitment to the good of the other. The object of this commitment is the other and that which is truly their good, which is their “abiding in love.”

Alexandra Newton discusses the relation between virtue and habit in Kant’s moral philosophy. While commentators frequently claim that Kant rejects Aristotle’s definition of virtue as a type of habit, Newton argues that this overlooks the fact that Kant distinguishes different kinds of habit. While he rejects the idea that virtue is a habit of action or desire, like Aristotle he allows virtue to be a habit of choice (hexis prohairetike), understood as an exercise of practical reason. Carefully distinguishing the different notions of habit Kant delineates thus allows us to see that his conception of virtue is more Aristotelian than commonly assumed. At the same time, Newton notes, there remain important points on which Kant’s conception diverges from Aristotle’s, having to do specifically with the temporal character of virtue

The theory posits that conformation systems are the channel for children to discover their community’s implementations of each relational model. Hence, children seek, initiate, attend, and take note of conformations. Consequently, conformation systems are the media for cultural reproduction, transformation, and resistance to social systems. Another point to consider is that conformations may or may not be intentional, be done by choice, or be in conscious awareness. Also a big issue is the conceptualization of felicity conditions for conformations: When are people receptive to a given conformation, and when are they offended by – and reject – a given conformation? Another aspect of conformation systems that we have only touched on, but that merits extensive research, is that they, on the one hand, often depend on available technology, and, on the other hand, impel the invention, diffusion, and development of technologies that facilitate, amplify, and hence increase the efficacy of conformations.