The present book is the fourth volume of the series Studies in the Philosophy of Law which has appeared since 2001. The previous two volumes had a monographic character, the last one being devoted to the topic of the economic analysis of law and published in English. The present volume also has a monographic character and concerns various issues of bioethics, law and philosophy.

The volume is a part of a research project “Biojurisprudence” pursued from 2007 through 2010 by the Department of Philosophy of Law and Legal Ethics at the Jagiellonian University and sponsored by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Within the project our team has published many articles, monographs and edited works. One monograph Evolutionary Foundations of Law was written by Dr. Wojciech Załuski and was published in both Polish and English in 2009. We have also prepared the monograph, Paradoxes of Legal Bioethics together which is forthcoming this year. Furthermore, we have prepared a book which is a collection of various papers presented at the international Symposium “Law and Biology” organized by our Department in December 2009.

This volume consists of various essays written by scholars from Italy, USA and Poland. Half of the papers included in the volume were presented during the 23rd IVR World Congress of Legal and Social Philosophy held in Krakow in 2007 in the special workshop organized and supervised by Dr. Marta Soniewicka and Dr. Wojciech Załuski.