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  • Addiction, Desire, and The Polluted Environment – Richard Holton’s 2nd Uehiro Lecture

    By Jonathan Pugh   In the second of his three Uehiro lectures on the theme of ‘illness and the social self’, Richard Holton turned to the moral questions raised by addiction. In the first half of the lecture, he outlined an account of addictive behaviour according to which addictive substances disrupt the link between wanting…

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  • Coffee with Colleagues: Caffeine is a “Social” Enhancer

    By Nadira Faber The coffee you are having with your colleagues at a business meeting does more than keep you awake. Many of us know that caffeine can help with alertness and working memory – the first systematic study on caffeine and performance, sponsored by Coca-Cola, was published over 100 years ago. But did you…

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  • Hell, Damnation, The Royal Wedding, And The Thrashing Of Schoolboys

    By Charles Foster Image: Holly Fisher, a Conservative Christian blogger from West Virginia, posing with gun, Bible, and US flag:  from www.nydailynews.com There was a near universal consensus that Bishop Michael Curry’s sermon at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was magnificent.  ‘Frock Star’, panted the Sun.  The Bishop ‘stole the show…and is…

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  • Video Series: Francesca Minerva on Discrimination Against Unattractive People

    Is discrimination against unattractive people (lookism) a serious problem? What are the costs of lookism ? What should we do about lookism? In this interview with Katrien Devolder, Dr Francesca Minerva (Philosopher, Ghent University) addresses these thorny questions.

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  • Dementia and the Social Scaffold of Memory

    By Jonathan Pugh   The number of individuals suffering with dementia is steadily increasing; as such, the moral issues raised by the neurodegenerative diseases that bring about the symptoms typifying dementia are of pressing practical concern. In this context, Richard Holton’s topic for the first of his three 2018 Uehiro lectures (on the theme “Illness…

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  • Why It’s Important to Test Drugs on Pregnant Women

    By Mackenzie Graham Crosspost from The Conversation. Click here to read the full article. The development of accessible treatment options for pregnant women is a significant public health issue. Yet, very few medications are approved for use during pregnancy. Most drug labels have little data to inform prescribing decisions. This means that most medicines taken…

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  • Announcement: Vacancy Research Fellow in Applied Moral Philosophy

    Applications are invited for a full-time Research Fellow position (Grade 7: £31,604 – £38,883 p.a.) to conduct research in philosophy and applied ethics for the research project: Neurointerventions in Crime Prevention: An Ethical Analysis, which is hosted by the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics within the Faculty of Philosophy. This post is fixed-term for…

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  • I Feel Pretty – Your Practical Ethics Movie Review

    By Neil Levy Last week, I found myself seeing a film I hadn’t planned to. The film I wanted to see (The Death of Stalin) was sold out, so rather than miss my weekly fix, I picked the Amy Schumer comedy I Feel Pretty. I don’t mind a chick flick and I enjoyed Trainwreck, but…

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  • Doing Good and Being Bad: The Presidents Club, Charity and Moral Licensing.

    Last January, an article in the Financial Times broke a story about a men-only charity event run by the Presidents Club, a charitable trust set up to raise money for “worthy children’s causes.” Allegations were made by undercover journalists who attended the black tie event as ‘hostesses,’ 130 of whom were hired to attend the…

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  • Press Release: Alfie Evans Case

    by Dominic Wilkinson @Neonatalethics In the light of the media attention today, I have gathered together some of the material relating to the ethics of this case

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