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Lifespan Enhancement and Punishment

Lifespan Enhancement and Punishment

At a recent Uehiro Centre work-in-progress meeting, Rebecca Roache, Anders Sandberg and Hannah Maslen discussed the potential impacts of transformative technologies on our punishment practices, and the moral significance of some of these impacts (link to the audio here).

It’s a rich area: in this comment I want to consider just one of the many issues raised by Roache, Sandberg and Maslen. The issue is lifespan enhancement. Although lifespan has been gradually increasing for several decades, it may soon be possible to radically enhance lifespan. This possibility raises questions about our sentencing practices, and their moral justification. Read More »Lifespan Enhancement and Punishment

If you’re female, your face is worth 48-67% more than mine

If you’re a young woman, your face is worth between 48-67% more than that of a young man. That’s the gist of the Judicial College’s Guidelines for the Assessment of General Damages in Personal Injury Cases, 12th Edition (2013) – one of the canonical texts used by lawyers. For ‘Very Severe Scarring’ ‘in relatively young… Read More »If you’re female, your face is worth 48-67% more than mine

Some Thoughts on James Burke’s Vision of the Future

By Luke J. Davies.

Luke is on Twitter! Follow him here.

In 1973 James Burke made a series of predictions about how the world would be in 1993. He got a lot right: the wide spread use of computers at home and in schools; the data collection and storage that use makes possible; the development and approbation of IVF technology; changes in beliefs about privacy, in the form of a higher readiness in the young to give out personal information. Burke was recently asked to make another series of predictions about the state of the world in 80-100 years from now. (Find a short clip here, and a longer one here.)Read More »Some Thoughts on James Burke’s Vision of the Future

Ethics of Editing the Book of Life

It’s got Nobel Prize written all over it. The scientific innovation, CRISPR, which enables accurate ‘editing’ of DNA (compared to current techniques where a viral vector introduces the DNA at random), has had one team member “jumping out of my skin with excitement”. Still at basic science level, it has already been hailed as a potential new treatment for Huntington’s Disease, HIV and other disorders. It is apparently so easy to use that Professor Mello, who was involved in the project, has said, “a total novice in my lab got it to work”.

One possible application that has been suggested is ‘correcting’ the germline: changing the genetics of sperm, eggs and embryos, to eliminate diseases not just in individuals, but in future generations. The designer baby is in production.

Read More »Ethics of Editing the Book of Life

Closing down comments

Popular Science  has decided they will no longer permit comments on their new articles.  If you are a ‘vexing commenter’, a ‘shrill boorish specimen’, rather than a ‘delightful, thought-provoking commenter’, it now turns out you were never welcome. Of course, they have a perfect right to close their comments: it is their website. Their reasons for doing so, however, show a distressing lack of respect for the value of free speech and free opinion.

It is true that some people are shrill, boorish and vexing, but some people are merely called that because they are saying things others do not wish to hear. Climate skeptics are frequently dismissed in these terms. Very good, you might say. But so were abolitionists, feminists and gay rights activists. This is that well known irregular verb, I am forthright, you are argumentative, he is boorish, she is shrill, we are reality based truth speakers, ye (you all) are clamorous and they are vexatious liars.

Read More »Closing down comments

We should stop punishing addicted people for being addicted

Earlier this month, a BBC news magazine report explored a new, controversial drug law in Australia’s Northern Territory targeting alcohol problems among aboriginal people. In short, the new law entails that problem drinkers can be forced into treatment. Drinkers who go on to escape from rehab three times face a jail sentence. This will cost around $95m (US) over three years. The measure is presented in the article as an initiative that originates (at least partly) from the aboriginal community themselves, who are fed up with the effects of alcohol, in particular alcohol- related violence. Aboriginal people in the Alice Springs area are 31 times more likely to die from alcohol-related causes than other Australians.

So, as the article wonders, is forced rehab a solution for Australia’s aboriginal problem drinkers?

Read More »We should stop punishing addicted people for being addicted

The Morality of Sport-Hatred

It used to be the case that fans of Auburn University’s football team would gather after victories at Toomer’s corner in Auburn, Alabama, to throw rolls of toilet paper into the historic oak trees there. The trees have been removed. Not because Auburn University wanted it that way: Harvey Updyke, a fan of the University of Alabama’s football team – Auburn’s hated cross-state rival – poisoned the trees in 2010. Updyke was caught when he called in to a local sports radio show to brag about the deed. He was charged with criminal mischief, desecrating a venerated object and damaging agriculture. Although he initially pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, he later made a plea deal in which he pleaded guilty to criminal damage of an agricultural facility. He served six months in jail, and was released in June of this year.

This is of course a bad situation. I’ve been to football games at Auburn, and though I sport-hate their football team, the celebration at Toomer’s corner was a great tradition and the trees, themselves, were beautiful. I don’t wish to pass more judgment on Updyke, but rather to reflection on an ethical question his action raises. Read More »The Morality of Sport-Hatred

Could ad hominem arguments sometimes be OK?

By Brian D. Earp

Follow Brian on Twitter by clicking here.

Could ad hominem arguments sometimes be OK? 

You aren’t supposed to make ad hominem arguments in academic papers — maybe not anywhere. To get us on the same page, here’s a quick blurb from Wikipedia:

An ad hominem (Latin for “to the man” or “to the person”), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Ad hominem reasoning is normally categorized as an informal fallacy, more precisely as a genetic fallacy, a subcategory of fallacies of irrelevance.

Some initial thoughts. First, there are some clear cut cases where an ad hominem argument is plainly worthless and simply distracting: it doesn’t help us understand things better; it doesn’t wend toward truth. Let’s say that a philosopher makes an argument, X, concerning (say) abortion; and her opponent points out that the philosopher is (say) a known tax cheat — an attempt to discredit her character. Useless. But let’s say that a psychologist makes an argument, Y, about race and IQ (i.e., that black people are less “intelligent” than white people), and his opponent points out that he used to be a member of the KKK. Well, it’s still useless in one sense, in that the psychologist’s prior membership in the KKK can’t by itself disprove his argument; but it does seem useful in another sense, in that it might give us at least a plausible reason to be a little bit more cautious in interpreting the psychologist’s results.

Read More »Could ad hominem arguments sometimes be OK?

Financial Incentives, Coercion and Psychosis

In a recent editorial in the British Medical Journal, Tim Kendall draws attention to a recent study that suggests that modest financial incentives can significantly improve adherence in people treated with depot drugs for schizophrenia and other psychoses in the UK. This study looks set to reignite the debate regarding the moral permissibility of offering financial incentives as a part of medical care. Whilst those who support this practice point out that we already offer non-financial rewards to many patients, others have criticised the practice as, among other things, amounting to coercion. In this post, I shall contest this particular objection to the practice of offering financial incentives to patients as part of medical care.Read More »Financial Incentives, Coercion and Psychosis

Event Announcement: Serotonin influences the use of social norms in resource dilemmas” by Prof Robert Rogers and “Prosociality and trust” by Prof Paul A.M. Van Lange

“Serotonin influences the use of social norms in resource dilemmas” and “Prosociality and trust”

Professor Robert Rogers asks how do people sustain resources for the benefit of individuals and communities and avoid the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ in which shared resources become exhausted? And Prof Paul Van Lange will discuss psychological and neuroscientific evidence showing that for prosocials, it is essential that they count on reciprocity. In contrast, for individualists, they may switch to cooperation  if they come to be convinced that they can count on reciprocity

Time and Date: Friday15 November, 5pm – 7pm

Venue: Oxford Martin School, Corner of Catte and Holywell Street, Oxford

All welcome. Please register online

Full abstracts:
Read More »Event Announcement: Serotonin influences the use of social norms in resource dilemmas” by Prof Robert Rogers and “Prosociality and trust” by Prof Paul A.M. Van Lange