Russell Blackford

_50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists presents_ a collection of original essays drawn from an international group of prominent voices in the fields of academia, science, literature, media and politics who offer carefully considered statements of why they are atheists. Features a truly international cast of contributors, ranging from public intellectuals such as Peter Singer, Susan Blackmore, and A.C. Grayling, novelists, such as Joe Haldeman, and heavyweight philosophers of religion, including Graham Oppy and Michael Tooley Contributions range from rigorous philosophical arguments to highly personal, even whimsical, accounts of how each of these notable thinkers have come to reject religion in their lives Likely to have broad appeal given the current public fascination with religious issues and the reception of such books as _The God Delusion_ and _The End of Faith_.

Science fiction is a kind of fictional narrative that is characterised by novelty, rationality, and realism. It typically and centrally imagines future developments in social organisation, science, and/or technology, though it sometimes depicts amazing inventions in the present day, present-day invasions from space, or events that happened in the deep past, in prehistoric times. Science fiction can take many forms, but at its core it is fiction about the future. Science-fiction writers are not prophets, and they cannot simply provide a transparent window that opens upon the future. Hence, the title of this paper refers to a lens into the future: something more probing – and perhaps more difficult to use, requiring more activity, interpretation, and skill – than a window overlooking a future vista. In some cases, setting narratives in the future (much like the use of extraterrestrial settings) merely provides writers with exotic locales for adventure stories, something that came in handy as a plot device during a time when the surface of the Earth was increasingly being explored and mapped. However, science fiction writers often engage more meaningfully than that with ideas of the future, or of possible futures.

The recent drama in 2026 involving Writers' Week in Adelaide is a wake-up call. It’s a reminder of what can happen when balance is lost and political zeal crowds out what makes literary festivals so attractive in the first place: their capacity to bring people together through a shared love of books and writing. All of this highlights a difference between deplatformings and curation decisions - once invitations to events such as literary festivals are accepted, deplatforming the individual concerned is rarely justified. But not everyone can be given an invitation in the first place, and priority should be given to individuals who are temperamentally equipped for disagreement and exchange of views across divides, rather than those who thrive on affirmation from like-minded colleagues and audiences.

Israel is not committing genocide as defined by Article II of the Genocide Convention (and reflected in Article 6 of the Rome Statute). Genocide involves an attempt “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such” – which has been interpreted by international courts and tribunals to mean not merely dispersing a group or destroying its culture, but destroying it biologically. Put bluntly, genocide involves efforts at a group’s extermination. This is not the nature of Israel’s war in Gaza, conducted against Hamas: Israel demonstrably has military and strategic objectives rather than the objective of exterminating a people. It does not follow that we can exonerate Israel of all wrongdoing. But when the word genocide is falsely attached to Israel – rather than, say, calling for investigations of its possible war crimes – it has an impact. The effect is to associate Israel with “the crime of crimes” and more specifically with the horrors perpetrated against the Jews by Nazi Germany. This association then clings to all Israelis and can extend more broadly to the Jewish people themselves. The false Gazan genocide narrative sidelines the challenges of fighting a terrorist organization embedded within a civilian population. It inflames global tensions, fosters antisemitism, and distracts from efforts to understand the genuine rights and wrongs of the war in Gaza.

Many questions remain as to what can and cannot be tolerated in liberal democratic societies, not least questions of how much room should be allowed for harsh expressions of deep disagreement. It seems that any attempt to push beyond a policy of mutual forbearance (but one that is nonetheless highly permissive of mutual criticism) can lead to censorship of at least some people's serious and principled beliefs and the ways that these are expressed. That is, if we push beyond toleration for certain things some other things will not even be tolerated. It appears that similar issues arose within Indian society over two millennia ago. They have appeared in other times and places through history, and of course they were central to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century disputes over religious toleration in Europe and North America. These histories and the texts that emerged from them contain much that is worth returning to as we try to figure out our own social predicament.

_Philosophy’s Future: The Problem of Philosophical Progress_ diagnoses the state of philosophy as an academic discipline and calls it to account, inviting further reflection and dialogue on its cultural value and capacity for future evolution. Offers the most up-to-date treatment of the intellectual and cultural value of contemporary philosophy from a wide range of perspectives Features contributions from distinguished philosophers such as Frank Jackson, Karen Green, Timothy Williamson, Jessica Wilson, and many others Explores the ways philosophical investigations of logic, world, mind, and moral responsibility continue to shape the empirical and theoretical sciences Considers the role of contemporary philosophy in political issues such as women’s rights, the discrimination of minorities, and public health.

Liberalism itself is frequently derided, misunderstood and confused with other concepts. Yet, liberal principles, values and vocabulary deserve a place at the political table. The language of liberal theory retains some cultural resonance, even as it has faded from the nightly news except when co-opted in a limited and ill-informed way by right-wing populists. Some innocence has gone, and John Stuart Mill’s arguments probably need some tweaking, yet they retain much force. There’s still room for talk of free inquiry, free speech and the rule of law, and for talk of liberty, spontaneity, individuality and original thinking.

This chapter explores one weak area in particular within the high terrain of European human rights law. Or in any event, it examines a tension between the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and the tradition of secular liberal thought associated with the likes of John Locke, Benjamin Constant, and John Stuart Mill. From a more consistently secular liberal viewpoint, the court’s approach to religious freedom, especially its interaction with freedom of expression, is flawed in theory and sometimes disappointing in application. The court takes a literal and minimalist approach to any restrictions imposed by Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights on state establishments or endorsements of religion. But it then, without textual justification, gives Article 9 an expansive reading when it discerns an implied right of protection for religious feelings.

In We Have Always Been Cyborgs, Stefan Lorenz Sorgner presents an entire philosophical system, blending Nietzschean scepticism with the transhumanist impulse to embrace technology. He integrates ideas that range from fundamental issues in epistemology, metaphysics, and metaethics to specific recommendations for new European institutions. Much of this is attractive and impressive, and Sorgner’s growing body of work makes an important contribution to debates over regulatory policy arising from new technologies such as digital surveillance, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, and techniques for genome editing. At the same time, there is room for concern at Sorgner’s use of a cluster of ideas related to the politics of emerging technologies. Sorgner usefully invokes the concept of negative freedom, but this alone cannot settle the boundaries of freedom in a liberal democratic society. He appears to embrace an expansive concept of violence and is quick to find violent elements in ideas and opinions that he rejects. Again, he appears to underestimate and understate the importance of privacy. These criticisms are cautionary rather than definitive, and they may not provide adequate grounds to reject any of Sorgner’s policy recommendations. Nonetheless, the analysis suggests a need for further philosophical work on key concepts in the politics of emerging technologies.

An argument that modern liberal democracies should tolerate human enhancement technologies, answering key objections by critics of these practices. Emerging biotechnologies that manipulate human genetic material have drawn a chorus of objections from politicians, pundits, and scholars. In Humanity Enhanced, Russell Blackford eschews the heated rhetoric that surrounds genetic enhancement technologies to examine 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 draconian 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.

We live in an age of ideology, propaganda, and tribalism. Political conformity is enforced from many sides; the insidious social control that John Stuart Mill called “the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling.” Liberal or left-minded people are often more afraid of each other than of their conservative or right wing opponents. Social media and call-out-culture makes it easier to name, shame, ostracize and harass non-conformists, and destroys careers and lives. How can we oppose this, regaining freedom and our sense of ourselves as individuals? The Tyranny of Opinion identifies the problem, defines its character, and proposes strategies of resistance. Russell Blackford calls for an end to ideological purity policing and for recommitment to the foundational liberal values of individual liberty and spontaneity, free inquiry, diverse opinion, and honest debate.

Radical enhancement would employ technology to extend human capacities far beyond anything yet seen or experienced. Imagine, for example, easily outrunning any Olympic athlete while being dramatically smarter than Albert Einstein. Or imagine living for hundreds or thousands of years, making today's super-centenarians seem like mayflies. Soon - perhaps some time this century - we may have the technology for this. But if we had it, should we use it? Radical enhancement might seem like a gift, but could it become, as its critics warn, a poisoned chalice for individuals and a curse for human societies? In this fascinating book, Russell Blackford examines the pros and cons, bringing good humour, philosophical insight, and historical perspective to this most modern of modern debates.

Exploring the relationship between religion and the state Focusing 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 involve the relationship between religion and the state, including the teaching of evolution in schools, what to do about the burqa, and so on.

Peter Singer has argued that we should not proceed with a hypothetical life-extension drug, based on a scenario in which developing the drug would fail to achieve the greatest sum of happiness over time. However, this is the wrong test. If we ask, more simply, which policy would be more benevolent, we reach a different conclusion from Singer’s: even given his (admittedly questionable) scenario, development of the drug should go ahead. Singer’s rigorous utilitarian position pushes him in the direction of an implausible “total view” utilitarianism when it encounters the problems presented by certain thought experiments. A more pluralistic account of the nature of morality promises to solve these problems, and in this case it reaches a benevolent recommendation on life-extension technology.

Debates about the moral and political acceptability of particular sexual practices and new technologies often include appeals to a supposed imperative to follow nature. If nature is understood as the totality of all phenomena or as those things that are not artificial, there is little prospect of developing a successful argument to impugn interference with it or sinning against it. At the same time, there are serious difficulties with approaches that seek to identify "proper" human functioning. An alternative approach is to understand interference with nature as acting in a manner that threatens basic background conditions to human choice. Arguably, the theory of background conditions helps explain much of the hostility to practices and technologies that allegedly sin against nature. The theory does not, however, entail that appeals to nature are relevant or rational. Such appeals should be subjected to sceptical scrutiny. Indeed, the theory suggests that arguments against practices and technologies that can be seen as contrary to nature sometimes exercise a psychological attraction that is disproportional to their actual cogency