Over the next month Oxford Online Debates will be tackling the motion "Performance enhancing drugs should be allowed in sport". We will try to collect together relevant materials and blog posts below
in this special edition.
Should we encourage or avoid large scale environmental manipulation, for example in order to reduce climate change?
Measures such as carbon dioxide capture or ocean iron fertilisation have the potential to mitigate global warming, but what ethical issues are raised by these technologies? How should we take into account the potential risks of such measures, and how should they be weighed against the risks of inaction?
Interview by Olga Campos, Mª Ángeles Arráez, Miguel Moreno, Francisco Lara,
Pedro Francés, and Javier Rodríguez Alcázar in Dilemata No 3 2010
Read More »Bioethics and enhancement – an interview with Julian Savulescu
by Julian Savulescu
It is time to put the GM debate in a lead-lined coffin. To lay it finally to rest. And get things in perspective again.
by Dominic Wilkinson Roll up, roll up for the 109th Philosophers' Carnival… There weren't a huge number of submissions, so the following is partly drawn from my own wanderings across the blogosphere. Thanks for all those who did submit posts. Main tent – fight club In the big top this month we have a series… Read More »Philosophers’ Carnival CIX
A quick reminder that Practical Ethics News will host the 109th Philosophers' Carnival on 7th June. Don't forget to nominate your favourite (recent) philosophy blog post via this link. Posts need not be on the topic of practical ethics, although they should be accessible to a popular audience. Posts relating to current affairs are especially… Read More »Reminder – carnival next week
Nigel Warburton interviews Walter Sinnot Armstrong and Julian Savulescu on addiction Addiction – Sinnot-Armstrong and Savulescu
by Julian Savulescu
Walter argues that addiction is:
1. a disorder of self-control that comes in degrees. It is essentially pathological self-control, like compulsive hand-washing, where the addict has limited control in some circumstances but not enough self-control.
2. a mental disease.
Bennett Foddy and I have argued that while addicts may have poor self-control and act imprudently, poor self-control and imprudence are not diseases. They are features of the human condition. People become addicted to all sorts of things: heroin, alcohol, nicotine, gambling, sugar, sex, the internet and food. What is common to all these addictions is that involve the reward system. Heroin may be more potent at activating this system than sugar, but they all act in a similar way. There are differences in degree, not kind.
Professor Walter Sinnot-Armstrong gave a Leverhulme lecture last night on the question of addiction and responsibility. Click on the image or the link below to download or view a pdf of his presentation. "Are addicts responsible?" Listen to the podcast
We will have more blog posts relating to the ethics of addiction and Walter Sinnot Armstrong's talk over the next 24 hours, but here are a number of related papers by members of the centre provided here as a library resource (UPDATED 26/5/10)
