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Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Note to readers -- 1 Motivation and overview -- 2 Religion, toleration and religious toleration -- 3 The rise and division of Christendom -- 4 From toleration to terror -- 5 The Long Nineteenth Century -- 6 Total war and total government -- 7 Liberalism divided -- 8 The making of a post-liberal culture -- 9 The new normal -- 10 The newest normal - current challenges -- References -- Index.

We attribute to morality an inescapable authority over human actions, but the source of this authority is mysterious. It cannot come from God, nature, or reason. Morality is best understood as a technology that aids in social cooperation, while often being rationalized as something more metaphysical

Cover -- Half-Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Introduction and Overview -- 2 Morality and Its Discontents -- 3 Reason as a Foundation for Morality -- 4 The Appeal of Moral Naturalism -- 5 Moral Relativism(s) -- 6 Appeals to God -- 7 Living as a Moral Sceptic -- 8 A Metaethical Coda -- References -- Index

Emerging biotechnologies that manipulate human genetic material have drawn a chorus of objections from politicians, pundits, and scholars. In Humanity Enhanced, Russell Blackford examines them in the context of liberal thought, discussing the public policy issues they raise from legal and political perspectives. Some see the possibility of genetic choice as challenging the values of liberal democracy. Blackford argues that the challenge is not, as commonly supposed, the urgent need for a strict regulatory action. Rather, the challenge is that fear of these technologies has created an atmosphere in which liberal tolerance itself is threatened. Focusing on reproductive cloning, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis of embryos, and genetic engineering, Blackford takes on objections to enhancement technologies (raised by Jürgen Habermas and others) based on such concerns as individual autonomy and distributive justice. He argues that some enhancements would be genuinely beneficial, and that it would be justified in some circumstances even to exert pressure on parents to undertake genetic modification of embryos. Blackford argues against suppression of human enhancement, although he acknowledges that some specific and limited regulation may be required in the future. More generally, he argues, liberal democracies would demonstrate liberal values by tolerating and accepting the emerging technologies of genetic choice

Exploring the relationship between religion and the stateFocusing on the intersection of religion, law, and politics in contemporary liberal democracies, Blackford considers the concept of the secular state, revising and updating enlightenment views for the present day. Freedom of Religion and the Secular State offers a comprehensive analysis, with a global focus, of the subject of religious freedom from a legal as well as historical and philosophical viewpoint. It makes an original contribution to current debates about freedom of religion, and addresses a whole range of hot-button issues that.

I endorse Mark Walker's thesis that there is no moral difference between genetic interventions to make it more likely that children will develop moral virtues, such as truthfulness, caring, and justice—however, exactly, these are understood—and environmental interventions aimed at the same outcome. In this response, I offer some further considerations that tend to support the thesis in the face of "loss of freedom" or "loss of autonomy" arguments.