Jonathan Pugh

Personal autonomy is often lauded as a key value in contemporary Western bioethics, and the claim that there is an important relationship between autonomy and rationality is often treated as an uncontroversial claim in this sphere. Yet, there is also considerable disagreement about how we should cash out the relationship between rationality and autonomy. In particular, it is unclear whether a rationalist view of autonomy can be compatible with legal judgments that enshrine a patient's right to refuse medical treatment, regardless of whether ". . . the reasons for making the choice are rational, irrational, unknown or even non-existent". In this book, I bring recent philosophical work on the nature of rationality to bear on the question of how we should understand autonomy in contemporary bioethics. In doing so, I develop a new framework for thinking about the concept, one that is grounded in an understanding of the different roles that rational beliefs and rational desires have to play in personal autonomy. Furthermore, the account outlined here allows for a deeper understanding of different form of controlling influence, and the relationship between our freedom to act, and our capacity to decide autonomously. I contrast my rationalist with other prominent accounts of autonomy in bioethics, and outline the revisionary implications it has for various practical questions in bioethics in which autonomy is a salient concern, including questions about the nature of informed consent and decision-making capacity.

Autonomy, Rationality, and Contemporary Bioethics

David Chandler

'A must read … a new analytical agenda for the Anthropocene, coherently drawing out the power of thinking with islands.' – Elena Burgos Martinez, Leiden University ‘This is an essential book. [The] analytics they propose … offer both a critical agenda for island studies and compass points through which to navigate the haunting past, troubling present, and precarious future.’ – Craig Santos Perez, University of Hawai’i, Manoa ‘All academic books should be like this: hard to put down. Informative, careful, sometimes devasting, yet absolutely necessary - if you read one book about the Anthropocene let it be this. You will never think of islands in the same way again.’ – Kimberley Peters, University of Oldenburg ‘ … a unique journey into the Anthropocene. Critical, generous and compelling’. — Nigel Clark, Lancaster University The island has become a key figure of the Anthropocene – an epoch in which human entanglements with nature come increasingly to the fore. For a long time, islands were romanticised or marginalised, seen as lacking modernity’s capacities for progress, vulnerable to the effects of catastrophic climate change and the afterlives of empire and coloniality. Today, however, the island is increasingly important for both policy-oriented and critical imaginaries that seek, more positively, to draw upon the island’s liminal and disruptive capacities, especially the relational entanglements and sensitivities its peoples and modes of life are said to exhibit. Anthropocene Islands: Entangled Worlds explores the significant and widespread shift to working with islands for the generation of new or alternative approaches to knowledge, critique and policy practices. It explains how contemporary Anthropocene thinking takes a particular interest in islands as ‘entangled worlds’, which break down the human/nature divide of modernity and enable the generation of new or alternative approaches to ways of being (ontology) and knowing (epistemology). The book draws out core analytics which have risen to prominence (Resilience, Patchworks, Correlation and Storiation) as contemporary policy makers, scholars, critical theorists, artists, poets and activists work with islands to move beyond the constraints of modern approaches. In doing so, it argues that engaging with islands has become increasingly important for the generation of some of the core frameworks of contemporary thinking and concludes with a new critical agenda for the Anthropocene.

Entangled Worlds

Anthropocene Islands

Stewart Cruttenden

The Random Book of … John features facts, figures, stats, and trivia on legions of record breakers, record losers, actors, singers, sportsmen, historical figures, the famous and infamous, felons, inventors, rulers, heartthrobs, politicians, and scientists called John. Which John jokingly suggested he might be offered the job of tea boy in a Gordon Brown government, sent 3,700 extra British troops to Afghanistan, and is chairman of Celtic? Which John led 10,000 officers, wrote a bestseller ,and appeared, with his dog, in TV ads for patio awnings? Which John was turned down for a job at Pizza Express but later earned $1 million for his role as Jonathan in The Mummy Returns (2001)? Which John landed a Gulfstream jet aircraft at Washington National Airport with complete electrical failure in icy conditions at night in 1993? Which John doesn't read newspapers or watch TV, has designed record covers for Donovan and The Beatles, and is in a famously open relationship?

The Random Book Of... John

Paul Scott Reaney

The Random Book of … Paul features facts, figures, stats, and trivia on legions of record breakers, record losers, actors, singers, sportsmen, historical figures, the famous and infamous, felons, inventors, rulers, heartthrobs, politicians, and scientists called Paul. Which Paul has battled Hodgkin's disease, was on the first private flight into suborbital space, and is worth over $22 billion? Which Paul is in the Penzance South ward, has been raided by the Spanish twice, and worships a former bus driver? Which Paul was a butterfly expert, predicted that life expectancy in the USA would be 42 by 1990, and that England would not exist by the year 2000? Which Paul was thirty-three feet tall, broke windows when he clapped, and was carried by five storks at birth? Which Paul picked up an 18-stone man with his mouth and ripped out five front teeth?

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Richard Shanahan

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The Random Book Of... Richard

Andrew Robinson

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The Random Book Of... Andrew

Jason Dickinson

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The Random Book Of... Christopher

Max Leonard

The Random Book of ... Robert features facts, figures, stats, and trivia on legions of record breakers, record losers, actors, singers, sportsmen, historical figures, the famous and infamous, felons, inventors, rulers, heartthrobs, politicians, and scientists called Robert. Which Robert bought London Bridge and shipped it brick by brick to Arizona? Which Robert discovered the Titanic while on a secret nuclear mission for the U.S. Navy? Which Robert implanted boar's tusks into his assistant's mouth as a joke? Which Robert married his childhood sweetheart only after kidnapping her three times, and broke 433 bones during his lifetime? Which Robert was enjoying a hospitality lunch at Lords cricket ground when he was called out of retirement to keep wicket for England?

The Random Book Of... Robert

Paul Geraghty

The Random Book of … Matthew features facts, figures, stats, and trivia on legions of record breakers, record losers, actors, singers, sportsmen, historical figures, the famous and infamous, felons, inventors, rulers, heartthrobs, politicians, and scientists called Matthew. Which Matthew was visited by a mysterious poltergeist, could see auras, and is able to kill cancer cells? Which Matthew turned down Chelsea and AC Milan football clubs, missed only one out of 49 penalties, and scored 209 career goals from midfield? Which Matthew won gold at the Beijing Olympics sporting a spiky red Mohican? Which Matthew was a computer programmer before videoing himself dancing in Hanoi, and then in dozens of other locations, to become an internet phenomenon? Which Matthew broke the story of Bill Clinton's affair and claimed that prominent politicians were closet homosexuals?

Jonathan Pugh

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