Practical Ethics

Event Announcement: Direct to Consumer Genetic Testing Workshop May 21

by Practical Ethics
February 20, 2009

The Ethox Centre and the Programme on the Ethics of New Biosciences are co-organising a one-day workshop to explore the ethical and regulatory issues surrounding the recent development and marketing of direct to consumer genetic tests. Companies such as deCODE Genetics, 23andME and DNADirect are already marketing direct to consumer genetic tests but there has… Read More »Event Announcement: Direct to Consumer Genetic Testing Workshop May 21

The Ethics of Keeping a Child from its Parents

by Practical Ethics
February 17, 2009

Two of our regular authors, Rebecca Roache and Barbro Bjorkman, have written an opinion piece on the ethics of keeping a child from its parents for BBC Magazine Online, discussing the issues surrounding the case of the Webster family, who recently lost their bid to overturn the adoption of their children. Although the court accepted that there may… Read More »The Ethics of Keeping a Child from its Parents

Special lecture: Jeff McMahan on Cognitive Disability and Cognitive Enhancement

by Practical Ethics
February 13, 2009

Friday 27 February, 12.30 p.m. – 2.00 p.m.Venue: Seminar Room 1, Old Indian Institute, 34 Broad St, Oxford, OX1 3BD Abstract: There are some members of the human species whose cognitive capacities and potential are no higher than those of higher nonhuman animals. I will seek to explain why it is important for our understanding… Read More »Special lecture: Jeff McMahan on Cognitive Disability and Cognitive Enhancement

Allen Buchanan: Leverhulme Lectures 2009′ Ethics in Political Reality’

by Practical Ethics
January 29, 2009

We are pleased to announce Professor Allen Buchanan’s Leverhulme Lecture Series ‘Ethics in Political Reality’. Allen Buchanan is James B. Duke Professor Philosophy at Duke University. His research is in political philosophy, with a focus on international issues, and bioethics, with a focus on the ethics of genetic interventions with human beings. He is visiting Oxford as Leverhulme Visiting Professor for four months, and will be giving the 2009 Uehiro Lectures.

The lectures are open to all including the public and there is no need to book. For further information, please email ethics@philosophy.ox.ac.uk

Please see full post for the details on each lecture

Announcement of Neuroethics Lectures: Walter Sinnott-Armstrong

by Practical Ethics
January 22, 2009

Professor Walter Sinnott-Armstrong will be giving two Leverhulme lectures and a special ethics seminar on Neuroscience and Neuroethics at the University of Oxford as part of his Leverhulme Visiting Professorship programme 2008 – 10. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is Professor of Philosophy and Hardy Professor of Legal Studies, at Dartmouth College, and is and Co-Director, MacArthur Law and Neuroscience Project. See extended post for full details of these lectures

Death Fiction and Taking Organs from the Living

by Practical Ethics
October 24, 2008

By Julian Savulescu and Dominic Wilkinson

Imagine you could save 6 lives with a drop of your blood. Would you have a moral obligation to donate a drop of blood to save six people’s lives? It seems that if any sort of moral obligation exists, you have a moral obligation to save six lives with just a pinprick of your blood.

But every day people do far worse than failing to give a drop of blood to save 6 lives. They choose to bury or burn their organs after their death, rather than save 6 lives with these organs. And it would cost them nothing to give those organs after their death. Our failure to give our organs to those who need them is among the greatest moral failures of our lives. At zero cost to themselves, not even having to endure a pinprick, many people choose to destroy their lifesaving organs after their death.

Legal Abortion Time-Limits: Arbitrary Limits Harm Women

by Practical Ethics
May 26, 2008

By Dr. Lachlan de Crespigny, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Melbourne

The vote by the British parliament to keep the upper legal limit on abortion at 24 weeks was headline news around the world. An article in The Economist (1) considers that the British were spared America’s abortion wars partly because Britain is less religious than America, but also because abortion laws are made in Parliament, where shades of grey can be debated, not in the courts, where black or white usually prevails.

Interestingly much of the debate was about ‘viability’ – the minimum gestational age at which a newborn is said to be capable of surviving with modern intensive care facilities. This is a simple across-the-board week count. But the survival rate of newborns also depends on many other factors, including where they are born (2, 3), fetal health including the presence or absence of an abnormality (which remains lawful where the child will be ‘seriously handicapped’), plus the condition of the newborn. While around half or so of 24 week newborns in Britain may survive, many or most of the abortions at around that gestation are of problem, or unhealthy, pregnancies.

Brain Boosting and Cheating in Exams: Four Responses

by Practical Ethics
May 22, 2008

A report by the Academy of Medical Sciences looking at different aspects of drug use and mental health has identified a growing trend for off-label use of drugs intended for the treatment of diseases including narcolepsy, ADHD and Alzheimer’s. The use of such drugs by a healthy individual can improve memory, alertness and concentration. While the report does not condemn the practice, it raises a number of potential concerns over safety, and fairness. Professor Les Iversen, report co-author, highlighted concerns that the use of enhancement in exams would unfairly advantage wealthier students, and suggested that the use of such drugs could be considered cheating. The report recommends that legislation is prepared to tackle the misuse of such drugs, including the potential for urine testing in schools and universities.

Below are responses from Julian Savulescu, Nick Bostrom, Anders Sandberg and Mark Sheehan on the effects of cognitive enhancing drugs, and the issue of cheating

Changing the Building Blocks of Life: Playing God and Being gods

by Practical Ethics
February 28, 2008

All life on earth has the same simple basic structure. It is based on the genetic code contained in DNA. The differences in DNA between a toad and Albert Einstein are what determines their different properties.

The active ingredients in DNA are also simple. They are 4 bases: cytosine, guanine, adenine and thymine, or A, T, C and G. The order of these 4 bases is what determines the characteristics of life, the differences between Einstein and a toad.

Scientists in California have created two new bases in addition to A, T, C and G: dSICS and DMMO2. These new bases function like natural ones, they pair appropriately with their partner and are faithfully copied by the natural enzyme, DNA polymerase, responsible for making the billions of copies of DNA necessary to programme each cell in the body of a living organism.

At present, these new bases or building blocks do not do anything. But scientists hope they could be used

"for hundreds of purposes: for example, to build complex shapes, to build complex nanostructures, silence disease genes or even perform calculations… [and even]expand the genetic code and ‘evolvability’ of an organism."

« Previous
1
…
8
9
10