In a new book edited by John Mair, After Leveson? The Future for British Journalism, Phil Harding, former controller of editorial policy at the BBC, recommends mid-career ethical training for all journalists.Read More »Ethics after Leveson
It is now quite common to draw distinctions between three types of philosophical ethics. Practical ethics is meant to concern substantive moral issues facing many of us each day, such as abortion or climate change. Read More »Practical Ethics and Philosophy
On the evening of Thursday 7 February, Jeff McMahan, Honorary Fellow of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and Professor Philosophy at Rutgers University, delivered an insightful and fascinating Astor Lecture at the University of Oxford.
McMahan’s topic was the relatively underdiscussed question of the extent to which states are morally entitled to resist what he called ‘lesser aggressors’, who are seeking not to take over the state in question or to inflict major harm or damage, but some lesser goal, such as control over some relatively insignificant piece of territory. McMahan mentioned the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands Islands as a possible example. Read More »Jeff McMahan on What Rights Can be Defended by Means of War
There has been predictable uproar at the revelation that, according to an anonymous survey, the average amount by which British Members of Parliament believe their salaries should rise is 32%. If that were to happen, they’d each take home £86,250 instead of their current £65, 738.Read More »Why We Should Pay MPs Much More
An outburst of blame, vituperation, and indignation, including death threats from all over the world, has followed the sad suicide of a nurse who fell for a ‘prank call’ from two Australian DJs and unwittingly released confidential information about a member of the British royal family.
Some criticism might well be made of any person who engages in such deception for the purposes of entertainment, and the fact that the DJs’ actions were therefore not entirely ‘innocent’ has perhaps fuelled the flames of protest. But there is little doubt that they are being subjected to significantly more blame than many others who engage in similar stunts.Read More »Prank Calls and Moral Luck
When Binta Jobe [not her real name] was nine, she was taken into the Gambian bush where she suffered female genital mutilation at the hands of an amateur surgeon without anaesthetic. She is now a 23-year-old asylum seeker in the UK, trying to prevent her three-year-old daughter from a similar experience if she is forcibly returned to the Gambia.Read More »FGM and the Golden Rule
‘Patient L’ is a man in a vegetative state, under the care of Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust. The Trust has placed a Do Not Rescuscitate order in his notes, yet his family claim that he himself would want to be revived if his condition deteriorated, because of his faith in Islam. The court of protection has now decided in favour of the Trust.
The Trust’s claim is that it is in Patient L’s best interests to be allowed to die, whereas Patient L himself – if we are to believe his family (and there seems little reason not to) – would almost certainly disagree. Read More »Patient L’s Autonomy
The European Court of Human Rights recently ruled ‘arbitrary and unlawful’ the UK practice of indeterminate prison sentences for the protection of the public (IPPs). Currently more than 6,000 prisoners in this country are serving such sentences. The judges did not, however, rule the very idea of IPPs to be unlawful. What they quite rightly see as objectionable is the extension of sentences for prisoners who have failed to attend rehabilitation courses they have not been given the opportunity to attend. This truly Kafka-esque state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue.Read More »Are Open-ended Sentences Unjust?
Tony Nicklinson is 58, and suffers from locked-in syndrome. His mind is as sharp as it ever was, but for the last seven years, as the result of a stroke, he has been entirely physically dependent on others, able to move only his eyes and eyelids. Just recently, his condition has worsened, and he is… Read More »Euthanasia and Human Rights
Dementia is one of the biggest challenges facing the British NHS, with one in three people developing the disease after the age of 65. This partly explains why there has been such excitement in scientific circles over intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg), which appears to slow the rate of mental decline in sufferers from Alzheimer’s. Obviously,… Read More »A Puzzle about Dementia
