Not cricket? Law, convention, ethics, and that run-out
Sporting contests are philosophically interesting, as well as enjoyable, because sports and games are full of rules and conventions, which inevitably raise issues of interpretation and give rise to passion about ethics and the spirit of the…
Read MoreShould the NHS fund Weight Watchers schemes?
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recently recommended that the NHS should learn from commercial weight loss programmes such as Weight Watchers, Rosemary Conley and Slimming World. The NICE guidelines suggested th…
Read MoreEssendon, Doping and Bad Arguments
By Julian Savulescu. @juliansavulescu The Australian newspaper ‘The Sunday Age’ reports today that “The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority has built a ”non-presence” drug case against 34 Essendon footballers, adopting…
Read MoreMorality, science, and Belgium’s child euthanasia law
Originally posted on the OUP blog. Reposted with the permission of the author Tony Hope is a Uehiro fellow, Emeritus Professor of Medical Ethics at the University of Oxford and the author of Medical Ethics: A Very Short Introduction. Scienc…
Read More“Puppy Farm” or “Commercial Breeder”?
As the diverse range of topics on this blog testifies, philosophical questions concerning practical ethics crop up every day, in a variety of circumstances. Today, I had my own ethical dilemma – this time regarding puppies. Having just move…
Read MoreGenetically Modifying Mosquitoes to ‘Bite the Dust’? Ethical Considerations
At some point, most people will have questioned the necessity of the existence of mosquitoes. In the UK at least, the things that might prompt us into such reflection are probably trivial; in my own case, the mild irritation of an itchy and…
Read MoreGirls should do competitive sports to ‘build confidence and resilience’. Really?
The chief executive of the Girls Day School Trust claimed this week that girls should take part in competitive sport as a way to build confidence and resilience.[1] The claim is particularly about taking part in sports where one wins or los…
Read MoreIf we chose it, would we need it?
An interesting new target has appeared in the discussion on human enhancements: to prevent and halt anthropogenic climate change by the use of moral bioenhancement. The issue of moral enhancements is extensively discussed, for example, in r…
Read MorePublic Sinners: Forgive or Forget?
If you haven’t heard anything about the ongoing saga of Donald Sterling, here is a quick run-down. Sterling owns an NBA team – the Los Angeles Clippers. By most accounts, Sterling is not a morally upstanding person (see here and here). But …
Read MoreWhat if schizophrenics really are possessed by demons, after all?
By Rebecca Roache Follow Rebecca on Twitter here Is there anything wrong with seriously entertaining this possibility? Not according to the author of a research article published this month in Journal of Religion and Health. In ‘Schi…
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