This chapter combines a focus on the scenic trajectories of Antigone and Creon with analyses of the tragedy’s choral songs. It traces the ways in which the characters’ actions, speech and deliberations are conditioned by the extent to which they understand (or misunderstand) the play’s complex reality. It argues that beyond the ethical conflict between them and questions of law and justice, both characters are presented in their own way as paradigms of human vulnerability and the limits of reason. Although Antigone’s action is eventually vindicated, it is not explicitly acknowledged by the gods, at least in her lifetime; instead, by the end of the play, her sacrifice appears to have been mere collateral damage in the gods’ plan to seek compensation for the exposure of Polynices’ corpse. Creon, because of his error of judgement in forbidding Polynices’ burial, undergoes a violent reversal of fortune from powerful and authoritative ruler to a ghost of a man. In the background, a pattern of divine control is interwoven with human agency in ways that are difficult to disentangle, both for the characters and Chorus and for the audience.

This chapter demonstrates that Sophocles’ Electra is pervaded by a strong sense of the fragility of human language and perception, drawing the spectators’ attention to the characters’ partial and often superficial understanding of events and conceptual categories such as familial strife, ancestral suffering, revenge and justice. The chapter focuses in turn on Orestes, Electra and the Paedagogus, analysing their experience of the tragedy’s reality and attempting to trace the larger networks of agency at work in their lives. Like Deianeira, Antigone or Creon, these characters operate in a world that is characterised by obscurity and constant upheaval; yet in Electra, the gods and the broad causal patterns governing the cosmos are more remote and elliptical than ever. Thus, the play can be located within the same intellectual, religious and philosophical traditions as other Sophoclean tragedies – but it engages with, and builds on, these traditions in a different way and to different effects, particularly in its radical questioning of humans’ ability to communicate successfully with the divine, and thus to access any kind of reality.

There is no officially recognised ‘Code of Tort Law’. The law of torts has to be distilled from two sources: case law and statutes. It has been formed primarily by the decisions of the common law judges who have developed the law case by case over hundreds of years. To an increasing extent, it has also been shaped by the acts of parliaments, which have responded to the perceived shortcomings of the common law. The role played by each of these two law-making institutions is different, and the range of choices open to them varies. This chapter will explain how these different roles allow different goals to be taken into account when the law is shaped into an integrated system that best serves the needs of the community – and again, remember that this is not an immutable objective standard, but rather one that is dictated by evolving relations of power and influence in our communities and societies.

In this chapter I argue that God’s love and goodness make it impossible for him either to intend the evil of human death or to delegate the authority to take a human life. This concludes my argument for the absolute norm against intending death.

In this chapter I give a preliminary argument against suicide, based on the core argument of the book. Suicide is distinguished from permisible acceptance of death as a side effect of some other permissible action.

This chapter critiques Judith Jarvis Thomson’s famous defense of abortion by addressing the question of ownership of the mother’s body. It then addresses the question of "vital conflict" cases: cases of abortion in which the mother’s life is in imminent danger.

Anosognosia, a term that denotes a lack of insight into one’s own condition, is a defining characteristic of many psychotic illnesses. As a result, generations of psychiatrists have pursued a paternalistic approach to care. Yet in the past century, the overall trend in patient care has been toward autonomy. What does it mean to respect the autonomy of patients whose lack of insight may bring them harm ? This chapter will explore these questions through each of the four principles generally employed in bioethical analysis: beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice, and autonomy. Each will have an illustrative case study and explore how anosognosia can further complicate already perplexing ethical scenarios.

This chapter considers the place of democracy in the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. By conceptualizing democracy, in pragmatist fashion, as a “way of life,” Emerson can be shown to have engaged democracy throughout his career in several different dimensions, both within and beyond official, state, or legal power relations. While Emerson participated in a discourse that was skeptical of the social dynamics of democracy in mass society, he simultaneously upheld his commitment to a philosophy of history that recognized in what he called “the democratic element” a driving force toward greater justice and equality. Democracy furthermore provided the key through which Emerson interpreted his own practice and poetics as a freelance lecturer. Emerson’s commitment to a transcendentally conceived notion of justice at times came into conflict with democracy’s requirements of negotiation and compromise, particularly in the context of radical abolitionism and the Civil War. As this chapter argues, Emerson tirelessly strove to resolve this conflict.

The final section reflects on the future of white supremacy, challenging the notion that it is an intractable, unchangeable force. While acknowledging its stubborn persistence over three centuries, the final reflection argues that describing racism as “timeless” or “complicated” often serves to justify inaction. It points to recent global protests following George Floyd’s murder as evidence of growing solidarity across different justice movements. These intersecting struggles against various forms of oppression – from police violence to denial of indigenous land rights – suggest increasing recognition of how different systems of power reinforce each other. The conclusion emphasizes that major social systems have fallen before, and encourages readers to imagine a future beyond white supremacy without limiting themselves to short-term or small-scale thinking.

The current practice of disability studies largely groups itself according to various “models” of disability, such as the “medical,” “social,” “identity,” and “minority.” While insightful, each is incomplete: some focus on the medical component of disability, others on its social implications, and yet others on its personal significance. The present chapter proposes an account of disability grounded in Thomistic anthropology. In this system, an individual is a human being insofar as he or she possesses a particular kind of essence or nature. Given this nature, a person has certain natural abilities that, if certain other requisite conditions are met, allow the person to perform typical operations. Disability – and the closely related term “impairment” – concerns inabilities to perform given activities and various consequent inequities that may arise. The “Thomistic model” proposed aims to incorporate insights from prevailing models of disability and, thus, to enrich contemporary disability studies through the application of Thomistic philosophy.

As one of the most prolific poets of twentieth-century Hispanic literature, Pablo Neruda’s influence affected diverse cultural and sociopolitical environments. His literary creation and participation in the public sphere led to the poet receiving prizes and awards of both modest and spectacular prestige. While some of Neruda’s awards prompted political controversies that revealed the peculiarities of his character, all of these honors extended his prominence as Chile’s chief poet in the World Republic of Letters. The acquisition of coveted international recognition was, however, of secondary importance to Neruda: His greatest achievement was his own people’s understanding and emotional identification with his poetry.

Written in February 2025, well after the completion of the monograph, the epilogue reflects on the fall of the Assad regime as a historic rupture while acknowledging the uncertainty of Syria’s post-revolutionary trajectory. While revolutionary ideals have been reaffirmed in historical narratives, their translation into governance, justice, and political inclusion remains unresolved. New actors now compete to define Syria’s future, shaping its ideological and institutional landscape. The chapter highlights how discursive battles over key political concepts – such as democracy, secularism, and governance – mirror a broader crisis of democracy, where increasingly questioned. It argues that the post-Assad moment has not ended Syria’s struggle for meaning but has transformed it into a contest over the principles that will shape the new order. The epilogue concludes that while something undeniably good has happened – the fall of a brutal dictatorship – the revolution’s aspirations remain incomplete. The task ahead is not to declare its success but to create the conditions in which its meaning continues to unfold.

Modern proponents of free speech maintain that the value of expression resides in its authenticity-making power, which generates political legitimacy. They simultaneously concede that the value of expression is not without abridgments, no matter how deeply felt or authentically fulfilling such expression may be. Given these commitments, how can free speech be valued for its authenticity-making power, and yet also conditionally regulated? This chapter explores a resolution based on an interpretation of Aquinas’s thought on speech and expression. First, Aquinas clarifies Aristotle’s distinction between vox (animal expression) and loquutio (logical discourse) as an irreducible relationship of explanandum and explanans: loquutio is uniquely disposed to comprehending what is just or unjust within what is pleasant or painful. Second, Thomistic loquutio is directed to truth while permitting false claims as logical-temporal constituents of discourse, requiring above all a “discursive situation” that avoids both contradiction and epistemically unjustified conviction. These characteristics of Thomistic loquutio are supported by his treatment of angelic communication, which is not revelatory so much as consultatory from a second-person perspective and clarificatory from a first-person perspective. Ultimately, this interpretive Thomistic account rejects the modern commitment of authenticity without absolutism, while affirming certain aspects of what makes speech politically valuable.

The introduction provides an overview of the analysis of the dialogue.

The earth’s shadow darkens the initial Heavens of Dante’s ascent, the shadow waning the nearer a Heaven is to that of the Sun.The inhabitants of the last earth-shadowed Heaven turn to that Heaven hoping to be free from the imperfections of terrestrial existence.But these Heavens’ vestigial earthiness exerts an effect.Each focuses on a particular imperfection: the fragility of moral vows; the defect of human law as a vehicle of justice; and the reign of “mad love.”These produce an urge to transcend this region.

But Dante has readers assess the losses as well as the gains that accrue when we leave our world behind.This assessment puts reason on trial, its inadequacies seeming to sanction reason’s subordination to faith as provided in the vision that beckons above.But these Heavens ask not only whether that’s possible but desirable.Reason’s inadequacies are shown to be inseparable from moral responsibility, from more just politics, and from the desires that generate the Comedy.Asking whether the transcendence of terrestrial existence makes for a happier life, Dante gives readers cause to consider the possibility that these earth-shadowed Heavens are more than merely a necessary step on the way to perfection.

In the past decade, the geographical and conceptual breadth of sustainability transitions has expanded, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Increasing attention is paid to social, economic and environmental issues in the ‘Global South’, where decades of colonial rule have shaped infrastructures and institutions. In recent years, the literature has taken a ‘decolonial turn’, underlining the risks of reproducing colonial ways of control, power, privilege, domination, and disassociation with Nature. This chapter reviews this emerging literature, articulating why and how contexts differ between Global South and North and how sustainability transitions theories could be more meaningful in Global South contexts. The central research question is: how could we analyse and enact sustainability transitions in the Global South in a way that transcends historical challenges of colonial modernity and undesired development while pursuing just futures? The review is organised around five themes: niches, regimes, change, justice, and knowledge diversity. The chapter proposes ways to go deeper into these themes in setting a research agenda for future sustainability transitions in the Global South.

The Roman eagle, speaking for Christianity, teaches the insuperable difference between divine and human justice. Given the life Dante has endorsed, the eagle’s view and Dante’s must diverge. They do so regarding the case of one who lives a good life but, without Christian faith, is condemned. Why, if reason guides him to that life, is faith nevertheless needed?The eagle’s response makes clear that it’s not justice, a common good, but resurrection that is the ultimate concern.God’s arbitrariness in dispensing this good is a credential of the power needed to provide it.

The Heaven of Saturn depicts the effect that orientation on this good has on philosophy. With the question of human good taken as resolved, the contemplatives actively discourage reasoned inquiry concerning humanly significant matters; any such inquiry could suggest doubt regarding God’s power to provide the key good.Peter Damian, a source of the handmaiden image, known for thinking God to be unbounded by the law of noncontradiction, conveys this message.He embraces the unknowability of God’s ways even to those who have been saved.The stark clarity of Peter’s position prepares Dante’s confrontation with this novel obstacle to the philosophic life raised by Christianity.