Skip to content

Ethics

Lord Justice Nero?

There is
a shrill, unpleasant new sound in the UK church. It is the sound of
conservative Christians saying that they are persecuted. It’s the voice of a
minority. And as Rowan Williams trenchantly observed: ‘The Church of England is
like a swimming pool: all the noise comes from the shallow end.’ The claim of
persecution is an insult to the vast numbers of Christians in the world who really
are persecuted. Please read the Bible and the history books before going on
prime time TV to say that you’re persecuted. 

Read More »Lord Justice Nero?

The privacy of the shrew

Is it wrong for documentary film makers to film intimate moments in the lives of non-human animals? David Attenborough has used fibroptic cameras to obtain views of the inside of a platypus’ nest, providing never-before-seen images of the birth and feeding of a newborn platypus. But imagine that he had used similar technology to obtain pictures from a human home birth, or to take pictures of copulating couples in their homes? Brett Mills, a lecturer in television studies at the University of East Anglia has controversially suggested that animals may have a right to privacy that is breached by filming them without their consent.

Read More »The privacy of the shrew

Are We Future Evil Aliens?

By: Julian Savulescu

Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge physicist, has recently argued, in a Discovery channel documentary, that alien life forms probably exist somewhere in the Universe, but we should avoid contact with them. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8642558.stm). His reason is, apparently, that if they are anything like humans, they are likely to be aggressive and either exterminate us or pillage our resources.

"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," he said. "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet." 

Read More »Are We Future Evil Aliens?

Morality: what’s disgust got to do with it?

Kathleen
Taylor has got an interesting recent piece in the Guardian about the importance
of the emotion of disgust for our moral lives. “If you had a dog”, she asks,
“and it died a natural death, how would you feel about roasting and eating it?”
Most of us would be revulsed by such an idea. And yet by hypothesis we
would not be causing the dog any harm whatsoever; suppose also we made sure
that the meat was adequately prepared so that it did not pose a health risk to
us and our children. Why should eating the dog raise any moral issue at all?

 

Read More »Morality: what’s disgust got to do with it?

I’m a taxpayer, I want my data!

A ruling by the Information Commissioner has ordered scientists at Queen’s University in Belfast to hand over copies of 40 years of research data on tree rings after a long battle with a climate sceptic. (PDF of the ruling) This is an important precedent for scientists, who have to comply with the strictest interpretation of the
Freedom of Information (FoI) Act. According to the Times: "Phil Willis, a Liberal Democrat MP and chairman of the Science and
Technology Select Committee, said that scientists now needed to work on
the presumption that if research is publicly funded, the data ought to
be made publicly available." More and more, there are demands for public releases of research data.

Were the scientists right in trying to withhold data, or is the public interest stronger? Is there a moral obligation to publish not just the results of publicly funded research, but the underlying data?

Read More »I’m a taxpayer, I want my data!

The equal air-time solution for controversial research

When are placebos ethical in medical research? One common answer is that it is only appropriate to use placebos in research when there is no proven effective treatment for the condition (1). On this view, if there is a proven treatment placebos would be unethical, and any trial should compare new drugs or treatments with the existing proven one. But what if the question of ‘proof’ is in dispute? For new medical treatments there often comes a point where some researchers and doctors are convinced that the new treatment is effective and safe while others remain unconvinced. When placebo-controlled trials take place in this setting they are often controversial.

Read More »The equal air-time solution for controversial research

Volcano Ethics: Should we be Flying the Unfriendly Skies?

An ash cloud produced by the eruption of the Eyjafjallajoekull volcano in Iceland has led to the severe disruption of airline transportation in the UK and across a wide swathe of Europe, with UK airspace almost completely closed since midday last Thursday. Passengers, freight importers and exporters, and airlines are just some of those affected by the disruption; some British employers are also taking a hit due to absent workers who went abroad for their Easter holidays and then found themselves stranded and unable to get home. The reasons for grounding the planes are non-trivial: as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) wrote in a press release last week: “Since volcanic ash is composed of very abrasive silica materials, it can damage the airframe and flight surfaces, clog different systems, abrade cockpit windows and flame-out jet engines constituting a serious safety hazard.”

Read More »Volcano Ethics: Should we be Flying the Unfriendly Skies?

The real scandals in organ donation consent

Headlines in a number of newspapers in the last day or two have claimed scandalous failures in organ donation consent in the UK. According to ‘Sky News’, organs were “taken without consent”, while the Sun claims that “NHS doctors took the wrong organs from the bodies of donors”. But it is important to put these claims in context. There are some bigger and more serious scandals when it comes to organ donation consent.

Read More »The real scandals in organ donation consent

The Christian Right is Wrong

An interesting document has just dropped into my in-box. It is a ‘Declaration of Christian Conscience’, to be found at www.westminster10.org.uk

It is signed by a number of Christian leaders, all of them noted for their theological conservatism. Christians across the land are being urged to sign the declaration to demonstrate the demographic power of conservative Christianity.

Some of the lead signatories are my friends, and I agree with many of the principles articulated, but this document is a disaster. It will reduce significantly the ability of Christians to make a contribution to public life. And that’s a shame.

Read More »The Christian Right is Wrong

Experience and self-experimentation in ethics

The Guardian has an article about student use of cognition enhancers. It is pretty similar to many others and I have already discussed my views on the academic use of cognition enhancers ad nauseam on this blog. However, it brings up something I have been thinking about since I was last in the media about enhancers. It started when I stated in an article in The Times that I had used modafinil; that strongly raised media interest, and I ended up in various radio interviews, The Daily Mail and the Oxford student newspaper (they of course asked the hardest questions). In the past I have always appeared as the expert on the function and ethics of enhancers but now I was also a subject, and that really appeals to journalism. At the same time I started thinking about the ethics of ethicists using a substance they are studying the ethics of using.

Read More »Experience and self-experimentation in ethics