Ethical Adventures: Speculative Fiction's Distinctive Contribution to Moral Understanding

This thesis identifies a distinctive contribution to ethical understanding made by Speculative fictions. Plausibly, written fictions bear a connection to the ethical world. But how ought one to make sense of this connection, and of that world, if one is willing to entertain that possibility seriously? Accepting and modifying one promising strategy pursued in the literature, this thesis proposes adopting a version of Neo-Aristotelian ethical investigation, here dubbed ‘Ethical Adventuring’. To the Ethical Adventurer, written fictions function as guides in an experimental, ex-periential quest to achieve moral understanding. Which guides ought the Adven-turer to consult, then, and what form does their guidance take? Early on, the choice is made to consult Speculative fictions. Several accounts of how written fic-tions, more broadly, may make contributions to ethical understanding are then outlined and critiqued. The decisive criticism of these accounts is that none of them convincingly identifies a distinctive way in which written fictions, of any va-riety, make contributions to ethical understanding. In search of a solution, the dis-cussion turns to the experiences generated by reading fiction. Two new accounts are supplied. First, a way of enriching present descriptions of the phenomenology of fiction reading. Second, a way of accounting for a special kind of content en-countered most often in the experiences created by reading Speculative fiction. Ex-periences with this special kind of content, it is argued, attune readers to the limits of our human mode of being in a way that encounters with quotidian qualia can-not. It is concluded that Speculative written fictions make distinctive contributions to moral understanding, and so, to an Ethical Adventure, in virtue of engendering these experiences

Pregnant or barren? Socratic wisdom in Plato's Theaetetus (149a - 151d)

This thesis aims to solve a contradiction that is generated by claims of Socrates’ in Plato’s Theaetetus that I refer to as the “puzzle of Socratic wisdom”. In the Theaetetus, Socrates claims to practice the art (technē) (Theaet 149a4, a7 150b6, c1, 151a) of midwifery, which, I argue at the opening of the first chapter, implies he possesses knowledge (epistēmē). This claim entails a contradiction when viewed in conjunction with Socrates’ claims that, firstly, wisdom (sophia) is the same as epistēmē (Theaet 145d-e) and, secondly, that he lacks any sophia (Theaet 150c4, c6, d1-2). Once I have shown this I consider two potential solutions that have been offered to this puzzle in the recent literature on the Theaetetus. Finding these solutions unsatisfactory, in the next chapter I consider the possibility that solutions that have been offered to a puzzle found in Plato’s early dialogues might help to solve the puzzle of Socratic wisdom. By exposing the similarities between the puzzles found in the early dialogues and the puzzle of Socratic wisdom I seek to justify the interpretive strategy of using solutions to the former to help solve the latter. I then explain and rebut a potential objection to adopting this procedure. This being so I go on to pursue the strategy of applying solutions offered to the puzzle from the early dialogues to the puzzle from the Theaetetus; I argue that the solutions on offer are for the most part unsatisfactory. In the final chapter I turn to offering my own proposal for how to solve the puzzle of Socratic wisdom. I argue that Socrates should not be understood as possessing the knowledge involved in practicing midwifery. I propose that instead, God possesses the insights necessary for practicing mental obstetrics and that Socrates collaborates with God in delivering and assessing the beliefs of Socrates’ interlocutors

Clogging the machinery: the BBC's experiment in science coordination, 1949–1953

In 1949, physicist Mark Oliphant criticised the BBC’s handling of science in a letter to the Director General William Haley. It initiated a chain of events which led to the experimental appointment of a science adviser, Henry Dale, to improve the ‘coordination’ of science broadcasts. The experiment failed, but the episode revealed conflicting views of the BBC’s responsibility towards science held by scientists and BBC staff. For the scientists, science had a special status, both as knowledge and as an activity, which in their view obligated the BBC to make special arrangements for it. BBC staff, however, had their own professional procedures which they were unwilling to abandon. The events unfolded within a few years of the end of the Second World War, when social attitudes to science had been coloured by the recent conflict, and when the BBC itself was under scrutiny from the William Beveridge’s Committee. The BBC was also embarking on new initiatives, notably the revival of adult education. These contextual factors bear on the story, which is about the relationship between a public service broadcaster and the external constituencies it relies on, but must appear to remain independent from. The article therefore extends earlier studies showing how external bodies have attempted to manipulate the inner workings of the BBC to their own advantage (e.g. those by Doctor and Karpf) by looking at the little-researched area of science broadcasting. The article is largely based on unpublished archive documents

Establishment of porcine and human expanded potential stem cells.

We recently derived mouse expanded potential stem cells (EPSCs) from individual blastomeres by inhibiting the critical molecular pathways that predispose their differentiation. EPSCs had enriched molecular signatures of blastomeres and possessed developmental potency for all embryonic and extra-embryonic cell lineages. Here, we report the derivation of porcine EPSCs, which express key pluripotency genes, are genetically stable, permit genome editing, differentiate to derivatives of the three germ layers in chimeras and produce primordial germ cell-like cells in vitro. Under similar conditions, human embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells can be converted, or somatic cells directly reprogrammed, to EPSCs that display the molecular and functional attributes reminiscent of porcine EPSCs. Importantly, trophoblast stem-cell-like cells can be generated from both human and porcine EPSCs. Our pathway-inhibition paradigm thus opens an avenue for generating mammalian pluripotent stem cells, and EPSCs present a unique cellular platform for translational research in biotechnology and regenerative medicine