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Roger Crisp

Be Excellent: How Ancient Virtues can Guide our Responses to the Climate Crisis

Written by Roger Crisp

After world chiefs and youth leaders gathered in September in New York at the United Nations Climate Action Summit, many of us as individuals are left feeling powerless and overwhelmed. Making big personal changes can appear costly in terms of happiness. And anyway, why should I bother when any difference I can make will be negligible? As we contemplate our future, we can seek insight from the great philosophers of the ancient world to guide our choices. Read More »Be Excellent: How Ancient Virtues can Guide our Responses to the Climate Crisis

Is there a Moral Problem with the Gig Economy?

by Roger Crisp

Nearly all of us have been involved with the so-called ‘gig economy’ in some way or other, whether by calling an Uber or by ordering a pizza via Deliveroo. Indeed my elder daughter was a ‘Roo’ for a while (not long, I’m glad to say), so I have had some insight, albeit vicarious, into what gig work is really like. But of course the gig economy has come under a lot of moral scrutiny in recent years – hence Dan Halliday’s fascinating and well attended New St Cross Special Ethics Seminar on Thursday 28 February.Read More »Is there a Moral Problem with the Gig Economy?

Fetal Reduction in a Multiple Pregnancy: the Case of Identical Twins

Written by Elizabeth Crisp and Roger Crisp

When a woman aborts a single fetus, that abortion can be a morally troubling experience for her. What about a situation in which a woman is pregnant with more than one fetus, perhaps identical twins, and wishes to abort just one of them – that is, engage in what is sometimes called ‘fetal reduction’ in a ‘multiple pregnancy’?Read More »Fetal Reduction in a Multiple Pregnancy: the Case of Identical Twins

Spineless Ethics

Written by Roger Crisp

Last week, at a seminar organized jointly by the Oxford Uehiro Centre and the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, Prof. Irina Mikhalevich presented a fascinating preview of a paper (‘Minds Without Spines: Toward a More Comprehensive Animal Ethics’) which forms part of a project she has been working on with Prof. Russell Powell.Read More »Spineless Ethics

What is ‘Practical’ Ethics?

By Roger Crisp

This is an exciting time for practical ethics in Oxford. The University has recently launched a new Masters in Practical Ethics, organized by the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and the Department for Continuing Education. Applicants are currently being assessed for admission, and the course begins in earnest in October.

But what makes ethics – by which I mean philosophical ethics – ‘practical’ (or ‘applied’)? It’s true that a good deal of philosophical work in ethics is at the ‘meta-level’, covering issues such as the truth-aptness of moral judgements or the metaphysics of moral properties. But isn’t the rest of it, if it’s not ‘meta’ and not merely clarificatory, all going to be practical, in some straightforward sense?

Read More »What is ‘Practical’ Ethics?