The Animal Breeding Research Organisation in Edinburgh (ABRO, founded in 1945) was a direct ancestor of the Roslin Institute, celebrated for the cloning of Dolly the sheep. After a period of sustained growth as an institute of the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), ABRO was to lose most of its funding in 1981. This decision has been absorbed into the narrative of the Thatcherite attack on science, but in this article I show that the choice to restructure ABRO pre-dated major government cuts to agricultural research, and stemmed from the ARC's wish to prioritize biotechnology in its portfolio. ABRO's management embraced this wish and campaigned against the cuts based on a promise of biotechnological innovation, shifting its focus from farm animal genetics to the production of recombinant pharmaceuticals in sheep milk. By tracing interaction between government policies, research council agendas and local strategies, I show how novel research programmes such as genetic modification could act as a lifeline for struggling institutions.

Firms’ human rights due diligence (HRDD) and communication on their human rights impacts are not only elements in the Corporate Responsibility to Respect human rights (Pillar Two), but also to be promoted by States as part of their State Duty to Protect (Pillar One) through regulatory strategies aiming at shaping business conduct. Analysing the EU’s 2014 Non-Financial Reporting Directive as an example of governmental regulation for promoting responsible business conduct, the article discusses conditions for HRDD and reporting as a communication process to stimulate organizational change in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles to avoid harm, including through affected-stakeholder engagement. Applying socio-legal regulatory theory along with organizational and accounting literature, the article finds that the Directive’s predominant focus on ex-post measures appears to be a neglected opportunity to induce ex-ante organizational learning and changed business conduct to prevent adverse human rights impact. It offers recommendations for regulators and stakeholders for stronger regulation.

This essay brings together work I have done over the past 10 years: on the nature of ethics, on the purpose of ethics, and on its foundations in a way that, I hope, as E.M. Forster put it, connects “the prose and the passion.” I deploy lessons learned in this process to identify and face what I believe to be crucial challenges to science and to freedom (as defended by, among others, Cicero, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Thomas Hobbes, John Stuart Mill, and Bertrand Russell). Finally I consider threats to freedom of a different sort, posed by the creation and dissemination of “alternative facts” and by what is sometimes called “super” or “full” artificial intelligence (AI).