Professor Neil Levy, visiting Leverhulme Lecturer, University of Oxford, has recently published a provocative essay at Aeon online magazine: Human beings are a punitive species. Perhaps because we are social animals, and require the cooperation of others to achieve our goals, we are strongly disposed to punish those who take advantage of us. Those who… Read More »Does the desire to punish have any place in modern justice?
Written by Simon Beard
Research Fellow in Philosophy, Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford
This is a cross post of an article which originally appeared in The Conversation.
In a recent article, Oxford University’s director of medical ethics, Dominic Wilkinson, argued that birth control was a key way of tackling the Zika virus’s apparently devastating effects on unborn children – a strategy that comes with the extra benefit of meeting the need for reproductive health across much of the affected areas.
However, although this approach might be one solution to a medical issue, it doesn’t consider the demographic implications of delaying pregnancy on such an unprecedented scale – some of which could have a significant impact on people and societies.Read More »Using birth control to combat Zika virus could affect future generations
Written by Professor Julian Savulescu and Professor
This is a cross-post of an article which was originally published in The Conversation
Effective altruism is a philosophy and social movement which aims not only to increase charitable donations of time and money (and indeed more broadly to encourage leading a lifestyle which does good in the world), but also encourage the most effective use of these resources, usually by looking for measurable impacts such as lives saved per dollar.
For an effective altruist, the core question is: “Of all the possible ways to make a difference, how can I make the greatest difference?” It might be argued, for example, that charity work isn’t the best use of time; a talented financier may be better off working for a bank, and use their earnings to pay for others to work for charities instead.Read More »Five ways to become a really effective altruist
Written By William Isdale and Prof. Julian Savulescu
This article was originally published by The Conversation
Last year, an estimated 12 to 15 registered organ donors and candidates for donation had their decision thwarted by relatives. This was due to the so-called family veto, which enables family members to prevent organ donation even if the deceased person had registered to be an organ donor.
Currently, if an individual decides they don’t want to be a donor, they can register an objection that has legal protection. But the decision to be a potential donor, as registered on the Australian Organ Donation Register, has no such protection.Read More »Families shouldn’t be allowed to veto organ donation
BY MAXWELL J. SMITH & ROSS E.G. UPSHUR
This article is cross posted from the OUPblog. To see the original article please follow this link: http://bit.ly/1mjAg0Z
‘Ebola is a wake-up call.’
This is a common sentiment expressed by those who have reflected on the ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa. It is a reaction to the nearly 30,000 cases and over 11,000 deaths that have occurred since the first cases of the outbreak were reported in March 2014. Though, it is not simply a reaction to the sheer number of cases and deaths; it is an acknowledgement that an outbreak of this magnitude should have never occurred and that we as a global community remain ill-prepared to prevent and respond to deadly global infectious disease outbreaks.Read More »Cross Post – Most powerful lesson from Ebola: We do not learn our lessons
Written by Andreas Kappes
This is an unedited version of Andreas Kappes’ article which was originally published on The Conversation
Twitter:@ankappes
Doping in sports often gives us intriguing insights not only into how we think about right and wrong1, but also into our intuitions about performance. In the aftermath of the latest doping scandal, for instance, Arsene Wegner, eminent football manager of Arsenal London, accused the Uefa (governing body of European football) of “basically accepting” doping 2. Arsenal London had just lost to Dynamo Kiev and one player form the Ukrainian team was caught doping. Uefa did not punish the Ukrainians, only the perpetrator. But surely, one doped player makes a team better, gives an unfair advantage to them, right? This intuition reflects how most of us think about performance in groups, not only in sports, but group performance everywhere. More of something that enhances individual performance such as expertise or skill is also more success for the team, and more of something that impairs individual performance such as sleep deprivation or stress means also less success for the team.Read More »When People Work Together is Less More or Less (and is More Less or More)?
Written by Simon Beard
This is an unedited version of a paper which was originally published on The Conversation:
please see here to read the original article
After 35 years, the Chinese government recently announced the abolition of its controversial one child policy for one that will allow all Chinese citizens to have up to two children. Whilst this increased respect for personal autonomy is undoubtedly good, it is not clear if the lifting of the ban will actually lead to a marked increase in China’s birth rate – while the birth rate has dramatically reduced since the policy was introduced, so too have those of neighbouring countries without such policies.
Whether or not Chinese parents decide to use their new-found rights to procreate, the move does raise questions. Would it be good or bad if more children were now born in China and the population grew? And what value might there be in any changes to China’s population size and structure?Read More »If abolishing China’s one child policy led to more children, would it be so bad?
This is an unedited version of a paper by Dr Pugh which was originally published on The Conversation:
please see here to read the original article
In a startling development in ‘gene-drive’ technology, a team of researchers at the University of California have succeeded in creating hundreds of genetically modified mosquitoes that are incapable of spreading the malaria parasite to humans, and which could potentially spread this trait rapidly throughout mosquito populations in the wild. This success has the potential to be translated into a huge global health benefit. Although global malarial deaths have been in decline over the past decade or so, WHO estimates that malaria has been responsible for over 400’000 deaths this year alone. The Anopheles genus of mosquito acts as the vector for malaria, as infected Anopheles mosquitoes transmit Plasmodium parasites to humans via their bites, and it is these parasites that cause malaria.Read More »The Ethics of Genetically Modified Mosquitoes and Gene-Drive Technology
Guest post by Barbara Sahakian, FMedSci, DSc, a professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, and president of the International Neuroethics Society. This article was originally published on the Dana Foundation Blog, and can be read here: http://danablog.org/2015/07/28/mental-health-disorders-in-prison-neuroethical-and-societal-issues/ More than half of all prison and jail inmates have a mental health problem.[i] In… Read More »Guest Post: Mental Health Disorders in Prison: Neuroethical and Societal Issues
