In this chapter argues that the ethics of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) must be understood as inseparable from the modes of responsibilization that have preceded it, which refers to developments in business ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and corporate sustainability. Focusing primarily on ESG as a heading for corporate responsibility policies and practices within the context of EU regulation, the chapter considers ESG as a supplement to prior conceptions rather than a stand–alone concept. After outlining the foundational, societal and environmental accomplishments of the three preceding constructs, the chapter argues that the defining, supplementary feature of ESG is that it is informational and that it has emerged as a concept that binds together the information needs of investors and other stakeholders, corporate disclosures, and government regulation. Thus, the ethics of ESG must be understood in terms of its ability to put greater and more obligatory demands on corporate responsibility through standardized reporting, standardized methods, and standardized data and performance measures.

Xi Jinping’s drive for power has destabilized elite political consensus and dismantled power-sharing norms that evolved since the 1980s. By removing de jure term limits on the office of the presidency – and thus far refusing to nominate his successor for this and his other leadership positions – Xi has solidified his own authority at the expense of the regular and peaceful transfer of power. In doing so, he has pushed China towards a potential destabilizing succession crisis. This chapter assesses China’s possible leadership succession scenarios in the coming years. Is Xi akin to Stalin after the purges of the 1930s – a leader who has so thoroughly eliminated rivals and cowed the system that he will remain in power until he can no longer perform the duties of office, leaving a succession battle in his wake? Or will the system produce a reaction against his all-encompassing power, either forcing him out of office prematurely or at least pushing him to set a timetable for his departure? Alternatively, what are Xi’s options for presiding over an orderly succession in the next 5 to 10 years? Solving the succession problem will be critical for the party’s future survival.

The chapter begins with discussion of intelligence in simple unicellular organisms followed by that of animals with complex nervous systems. Surprisingly, even organisms that do not have a central brain can navigate their complex environments, forage, and learn. In organisms with central nervous system, neurons and synapses in the brain provide elementary basis of intelligence and memory. Neurons generate action potentials that represent information. Synapses hold memory and control the signal transmission between neurons. A key feature of biological neural circuits is plasticity, that is, their ability to modify the circuit properties based both on stimuli and time intervals between them. This represents one form of learning. The biological brain is not static but continuously evolves based on the experience. The field of AI seeks to learn from biological neural circuitry, emulate aspects of intelligence and learning and attempts to build physical devices and algorithms that can demonstrate features of animal intelligence. Neuromorphic computing therefore requires a paradigm shift in design of semiconductors as well as algorithm foundations that are not necessarily built for perfection, rather for learning.

This chapter focuses on the philosophical novels of Sarah Fielding and Sarah Scott, younger sisters to fame and zealous proponents of literary and social reform, though perhaps not in that order. Tracking their novels’ trajectory away from the organizing singular narrator toward collective perspectives allows me to diagram a genealogical chain of formal experimentation that runs through Sarah Fielding’s The Adventures of David Simple (1744) and The Governess (1749) through Sarah Scott’s Description of Millenium Hall (1762). This chapter offers a new approach that discerns the patterned formal framework that undergirds how these novels imagine reparative communal responses to gender-based harms and women-centered alternatives to possessive individualism.

A patient in the preoperative area suddenly refuses to go forward with the removal of infected wires unless he is given assurances that the rest of his brain implant will remain in place. He indicates that he will go home and die rather than have the implant removed. The patient, surgeon, ethicist, and wife all convene to resolve the time sensitive issues. The short-term outcome is very positive, but there is an unexpected longer-term outcome that was unsettling.

This chapter examines influential legislative remedies: the 1907 creation of the Court of Criminal Appeal, the 1995 creation of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) and the 2024 legislation to annul and compensate miscarriages of justice caused by the Post Office’s faulty computer system. The Court of Appeal’s restrictive approach to overturning convictions and admitting new evidence is critiqued. The role of wrongful convictions in abolishing the death penalty is examined. The CCRC’s performance, including some of its failures and underfunding, is assessed. The migration of similar institutions to Scotland, Norway, New Zealand and Canada is also examined. Failed attempts in 2006 to limit appeals to innocence and successful attempts in 2014 to require it for compensation are critically assessed. The tension between the Innocence Network of the United Kingdom’s (INUK) focus on innocence and the legal system’s focus on the safety of convictions is analysed in light of INUK’s demise and future evolution of innocence organisations. Finally, the Post Office Scandal and the implications of enacting legislation to depart from ordinary methods of correcting and compensating miscarriages of justice are assessed.

This chapter discusses the contested place of the Declaration of Independence in black political thought. As a document that provided a rationale for American independence, the Declaration of Independence in its own way also provided one for black political equality in the United States. This tension between intention and interpretation has made the Declaration stubbornly immune from attack by black intellectuals, politicians, and movement leaders. With rare exception, the Declaration has been attacked mostly for its exclusivity, not its content or core ethos. Even Critical Race Theory’s (CRT) modest dissent from the Declaration has been limited in its ability to transform the persistence of black support for it, making arguments for CRT’s abandonment of America’s founding principles ring hollow. Instead, the history of black political thought from Frederick Douglass to W. E. B. Du Bois to Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, stands squarely on the side of the Declaration’s essential truths, while admonishing America’s enduring failure to live up to them.

This chapter situates classical education in late antique Gaul in its historical context, positioning the work within the current scholarly debates, and building on recent scholarship on late antique Gaul. Arranged thematically, Chapter 2 considers key developments in the political and military relationships between the western Roman empire, Gallo-Romans and barbarian groups, the prospects and prosperity of Gallo-Roman aristocrats, the increasing dominance of the Church and bishops in daily life, and the vitality and continuity of Gallo-Roman cities. It considers the conditions necessary for classical education to thrive and function and discusses how the structures that fostered education were affected by the political, military, religious, and cultural transformations of fifth-century Gaul.

“Manners” alternates between the portrayal of self-reliant “gentlemen” like Montaigne, Socrates, and El Cid, who are “original and commanding” and “fashion,” an imitative “hall of the Past” where “virtue [has] gone to seed.” But near the end of the essay he turns away from forms of aristocratic morality by introducing two new heroes: a woman, “the Persian Lilla,” who reconciles “all heterogeneous persons into one society”; and then “Osman,” a poor beggar at the gates of the Shah who is a “great heart … so sunny and hospitable in the centre of the country,” and whose wealth lies in his ability to “harbor” madness without sharing it. The introduction of Lilla and Osman late in “Manners” raises the question of how they align with its other heroes. Are they part of a turn or contrary tendency showing up late in the essay, or a deeper exploration of forms of virtue – especially love – already introduced?

This chapter provides, we believe, for the apogee of what we think will form the base for success of the quantum physics–like applications. Readers are invited in this chapter to carefully study the two-slit interference experiment with agents (and the agent two-preference interference) for a variety of real potential functions.

A framing case study discusses Uruguay’s attempt to limit cigarette sales by foreign firms. Then the chapter provides an overview of international investment law. The chapter discusses: (1) how states have historically protected foreign investment using international law, including major concepts and the evolution of investment institutions; (2) major foreign investor rights under contemporary investment law, including rules for expropriation, treatment standards, performance requirements, and legal remedies; and (3) how states seek to balance the protection of foreign investment against their own state authority in areas like maintaining public order and safety, preserving national security, and protecting the environment and labor.