What Kind of Altruism is Most Effective?
Imagine that you have been left a large legacy, and would like to donate it to a charity, with a view to doing the most good possible. It’s natural to think that one set of charities you should consider are those which cheaply save people’s…
Read MoreThe ethics of DocAdvisor: Is accountability always a good thing?
Dominic Wilkinson @NeonatalEthics In the news this morning, the NHS has released data on individual surgeons’ performance, so called “surgeon report cards”. This represents the latest move towards increased transparency and accountab…
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Cognitive enhancement, legalising opium, and cognitive biases
Suppose you want to enhance your cognition. A scientist hands you two drugs. Drug X has at least 19 controlled studies on the healthy individual showing it is effective, and while a handful of studies report a slight increase in blood press…
Read MoreShould men be allowed to discuss abortion?
@JimACEverett www.jimaceverett.com Feminists are kicking up quite a storm in Oxford at the moment. Oxford Students for Life have organized a debate on abortion to happen tomorrow (the 18th November, 2014), which has inspired some rather tr…
Read MoreOne Million Readers: Thank You
We are pleased to have reached our one millionth reader since our records began. Thank you to all our authors, guest posters, readers and commentators who have supported the blog over a number of years. And thanks to reader one million, who…
Read MoreA Methodological Worry for ‘Top Down’ Accounts of Human Rights
The language of human rights is pervasive both in academic literature and international legal practice. We often take the satisfaction of human rights to be a necessary condition for a state’s legitimacy, and the failure of a state to respe…
Read MoreWhy I Am Not a Utilitarian
Utilitarianism is a widely despised, denigrated and misunderstood moral theory. Kant himself described it as a morality fit only for English shopkeepers. (Kant had much loftier aspirations of entering his own “noumenal” world.) …
Read MoreDoing Good by Doing Nothing?
@JimACEverett www.jimaceverett.com A common theme running through debates on combating global problems like poverty and common change is the idea that something must be done. Usually, this is taken to mean that some prosocial behavi…
Read MoreSinnott-Armstrong on Implicit Moral Attitudes
On October 30th, Professor Walter Sinnott-Armstrong of Duke University gave the 2014 Wellcome Lecture in Neuroethics. His talk, “Implicit Moral Attitudes”, concerned the practical and theoretical implications of recent empirical research i…
Read MoreCan Bioethics be done without Theology? Guest Post from Charles Camosy
Guest Post: Charles Camosy, Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at Fordham University, New York City E-mail: ccamosy@gmail.com Twitter: @nohiddenmagenta The discipline of theological bioethics is in trouble. Especially as theology conti…
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