Skip to content

admin

Love Drugs: The Chemical Future of Relationships

Announcement: Brian Earp and Julian Savulescu’s new book ‘Love Drugs: The Chemical Future of Relationships‘, published by (Stanford University Press) is now available.

Is there a pill for love? What about an “anti-love drug”, to help us get over an ex? This book argues that certain psychoactive substances, including MDMA—the active ingredient in Ecstasy—may help ordinary couples work through relationship difficulties and strengthen their connection. Others may help sever an emotional connection during a breakup. These substances already exist, and they have transformative implications for how we think about love. This book builds a case for conducting research into “love drugs” and “anti-love drugs” and explores their ethical implications for individuals and society. Scandalously, Western medicine tends to ignore the interpersonal effects of drug-based interventions. Why are we still in the dark about the effects of these drugs on romantic partnerships? And how can we overhaul scientific research norms to take relationships more fully into account?

Read More »Love Drugs: The Chemical Future of Relationships

Announcement: New Issue of the Journal of Practical Ethics Available Open Access

  • by

We are pleased to announce Volume 7 Issue 3 of the Journal of Practical Ethics, our open access journal on moral and political philosophy. You can read our complete open access archive online and hard copies can be purchased at cost price following links from each issue. The Duty to Remove Statues of Wrongdoers Helen… Read More »Announcement: New Issue of the Journal of Practical Ethics Available Open Access

Human Genetic Enhancement Might Soon Be Possible – But Where Do We Draw the Line?

  • by

Written by Tess Johnson, University of Oxford

 

How far will we allow genetic enhancement to go?
vchal/ Shutterstock

The first genetically edited children were born in China in late 2018. Twins Lulu and Nana had a particular gene – known as CCR5 – modified during embryonic development. The aim was to make them (and their descendants) resistant to HIV. By some definitions, this would be an example of human enhancement.

Although there is still a long way to go before the technology is safe, this example has shown it’s possible to edit genes that will continue being inherited by genetic offspring for generations. However, we don’t yet know what effect these genetic changes will have on the overall health of the twins throughout life. Potential unintended changes to other genes is a grave concern which is limiting our use of gene editing technology at the moment – but this limit won’t always be present.Read More »Human Genetic Enhancement Might Soon Be Possible – But Where Do We Draw the Line?

Announcement: Annual Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics

  • by

Graduate and undergraduate students currently enrolled at the University of Oxford in any subject are invited to enter the Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics by submitting an essay of up to 2000 words on any topic relevant to practical ethics.  Eligibility includes visiting students who are registered as recognized students, and paying fees, but does not include informal visitors.  Two undergraduate papers and two graduate papers will be shortlisted from those submitted to go forward to a public presentation and discussion, where the winner of each category will be selected.

The winner from each category will receive £300, and the runner up £100. Revised versions of the two winning essays will be considered for publication in the Journal of Practical Ethics, though publication is not guaranteed.

Finalists may also have the opportunity to present their papers at the Festival of arguments: ethics fit for the 21st century on the 24th March.

To enter, please submit your written papers by the end of Monday 10th February 2020 to rocci.wilkinson@philosophy.ox.ac.uk. Finalists will be notified in mid February of selection. The public presentation will take place in 8th Week, Hilary term 2020, on Tuesday 10th March. Please save this presentation date, as you will need to attend if selected as a finalist. Read More »Announcement: Annual Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics

Cross Post: Privacy is a Collective Concern: When We Tell Companies About Ourselves, We Give Away Details About Others, Too.

BY CARISSA VÉLIZ

This article was originally published in New Statesman America

GETTY IMAGES / JUSTIN SULLIVAN

People often give a personal explanation of whether they protect the privacy of their data. Those who don’t care much about privacy might say that they have nothing to hide. Those who do worry about it might say that keeping their personal data safe protects them from being harmed by hackers or unscrupulous companies. Both positions assume that caring about and protecting one’s privacy is a personal matter. This is a common misunderstanding.

It’s easy to assume that because some data is “personal”, protecting it is a private matter. But privacy is both a personal and a collective affair, because data is rarely used on an individual basis.Read More »Cross Post: Privacy is a Collective Concern: When We Tell Companies About Ourselves, We Give Away Details About Others, Too.

Guest Post: Introducing Charlie’s Law, Bambos Charalambous MP (Labour, Enfield Southgate)

  • by

Bambos Charalambous MP (Labour, Enfield Southgate)

The tragic case of Charlie Gard, who sadly died in 2017 following a serious and protracted illness, attracted significant global attention because of the harrowing dilemmas that it highlighted.
Charlie’s story, was fraught with high tensions and unfurled very much in the public eye as a result of the constant media coverage, highlighted the inadequacy of current processes to prevent prolonged and distressing legal conflicts between the parents of seriously ill children and those responsible for their medical care.

Since Charlie’s death Charlie’s parents Connie Yates and Chris Gard have campaigned with dignity and determination to improve the situation for everyone involved: parents, healthcare professionals, hospitals, and the NHS more broadly; recognising that everyone wants the same thing: to maximise the life chances and general welfare of children suffering from serious illnesses and to reduce any stress on their parents who may be coming to terms with the potential death of their child.Read More »Guest Post: Introducing Charlie’s Law, Bambos Charalambous MP (Labour, Enfield Southgate)

Cross Post: Is Mandatory Vaccination the Best Way to Tackle Falling Rates of Childhood Immunisation?

  • by

Written by Dr Alberto Giubilini and Dr Samantha Vanderslott

This article was originally published on the Oxford Martin School website.

Following the publication of figures showing UK childhood vaccination rates have fallen for the fifth year in a row, researchers from the Oxford Martin Programme on Collective Responsibility for Infectious Disease discuss possible responses.

Alberto Giubilini: Yes, “we need to be bold” and take drastic measures to increase vaccination uptake

In response to the dramatic fall in vaccination uptake in the UK, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said that “we need to be bold” and that he “will not rule out action so that every child is properly protected”. This suggests that the Health Secretary is seriously considering some form of mandatory vaccination program or some form of penalty for non-vaccination, as is already the case in other countries, such as the US, Italy, France, or Australia. It is about time the UK takes action to ensure that individuals fulfil their social responsibility to protect not only their own children, but also other people, from infectious disease, and more generally to make their fair contribution to maintaining a good level of public health.Read More »Cross Post: Is Mandatory Vaccination the Best Way to Tackle Falling Rates of Childhood Immunisation?

A Proposal for Addressing Language Inequality in Academia

Written by Anri Asagumo

Oxford Uehiro/St Cross Scholar

Although more and more people see the importance of diversity in academia, language diversity is one type of diversity that seems to be diminishing: English is increasingly dominant in both areas. I would like to argue that people who are born and raised in an English-speaking country should be required to acquire a second language to the level they can write a rudimentary paper and give a presentation in that language in order to apply for international conferences and submit papers to international journals. The purpose of this requirement would be to address the significant inequality between native English-speakers and others. I focus on academia here, but ideally the same thing should be applied to the business world, too.Read More »A Proposal for Addressing Language Inequality in Academia

How Should We Regulate Genetic Enhancement Technologies?

A Guest Post Written by Jonny Anomaly

 

It’s been 20 years since Allen Buchanan and his colleagues published From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice. The book was a landmark, and it repays careful reading.

But there is at least one kind of question that has been largely (if not entirely) ignored in discussions about whether we should regulate parental choice, once parents have access to technologies that allow them to sculpt the genetic endowment of their children. How should we think about reproductive choices that are good for each but not for all? What should we do when there is a conflict between parents selecting the best traits for their children, when a different distribution of traits might be better from a social standpoint? Another way of asking the question is this: how should we think about situations in which there is a potential conflict between the principle of procreative beneficence and the principle of procreative altruism?Read More »How Should We Regulate Genetic Enhancement Technologies?

Guest Post: How Should We Evaluate Deaths?

Written by: Carl Tollef Solberg, Senior Research Fellow, Bergen Centre for Ethics and Priority Setting (BCEPS), University of Bergen.
Espen Gamlund, Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, University of Bergen.

In 2015, there were 56.4 million deaths worldwide (WHO 2017).[i] Most people would say that the majority of these deaths were bad. If this is the case, why is it so, and are these deaths equally bad?

Death is something we mourn or fear as the worst thing that could happen—whether the deaths of close ones, the deaths of strangers in reported accidents or tragedies, or our own. And yet, being dead is not something we will ever live to experience. This simple truth raises a host of challenging philosophical questions about the negativity surrounding our sense of death, and how and for whom exactly it is harmful. The question of whether death is bad has occupied philosophers for centuries, and the debate emerging in the philosophical literature is referred to as the “badness of death.” Are deaths primarily negative for the survivors, or does death also affect the decedent? What are the differences between death in fetal life, just after birth, or in adolescence? When is the worst time to die? These philosophical questions, although of considerable theoretical interest, is particularly relevant for how we evaluate deaths in global health, and policy-makers spending money to finance different health programs need to know how to answer them. Read More »Guest Post: How Should We Evaluate Deaths?