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Mindfulness meditation and implicit bias
A recent study purports to demonstrate that mindfulness meditation techniques can reduce implicit biases. Affecting all manner of interpersonal interactions, implicit biases are unconscious attitudes or associations that influence our understanding, behavior and decisions. Implicit biases can be revealed using implicit association tests (IATs), which often measure the degree to which a participant associates particular
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On the Appropriate Place of Self-Interest in Our Actions
Guest Post by Jos Philips With Christmas and the new year fast approaching, Jos Philips reconsiders what role self-interest may legitimately play in what we are doing. Recently, a class of students of mine were discussing a well-known article by Peter Singer (‘The Singer Solution to World Poverty,’ New York Times Sunday Magazine, 1999). In
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Should we intervene in nature to help animals?
Guest Post by Catia Faria It is commonly believed that our obligations towards other human beings are not restricted to abstaining from harming them. We should also prevent or alleviate harmful states of affairs for other individuals whenever it is in our power to do something about it. In animal ethics, however, the idea
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Optional whether to give, therefore optional where to give?
You might think that if it’s not wrong not to donate to charity, then it’s not wrong to give to whatever particular charity you choose (as long as no harm is done). I’m going to argue against this view. Very often, it is wrong to give to an ineffective charity, even when it’s not wrong
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Should we criminalise robotic rape and robotic child sexual abuse? Maybe
Guest Post by John Danaher (@JohnDanaher) This article is being cross-posted at Philosophical Disquisitions I recently published an unusual article. At least, I think it is unusual. It imagines a future in which sophisticated sex robots are used to replicate acts of rape and child sexual abuse, and then asks whether such acts should be
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Philosophy and animal experimentation: Animal ethics workshop with Christine Korsgaard.
By Dominic Wilkinson @Neonatalethics On the 3rd December, as part of the Uehiro lecture series, the Centre for Practical Ethics held a workshop on Animal Ethics at the Oxford Martin School.* The workshop included first a short summary of her Uehiro lectures by Professor Christine Korsgaard, and then a series of responses by invited
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Pregnancy discrimination: Indirect discrimination against women? (JPE 2(2))
Guest Post by Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen Professor Lippert-Rasmussen’s paper on indirect discrimination is part of the latest issue of the JPE December 3, 2014, the US Supreme Court held its first hearing on the case of a former UPS driver, Peggy Young (Young v UPS, 12-1226): “In 2006, UPS forced Young to take an unpaid leave
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Discriminating happiness. Journal of Practical Ethics 2(2) is out!
by Dominic Wilkinson, Managing editor JPE, @Neonatalethics The latest issue of the journal is out this week: Valerie Tiberius examines the relevance of different theories of wellbeing for the important practical task of providing life-advice to friends. She has posted a short blog on the topic. You can also listen to a great podcast interview
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Helping Friends
Guest post: Valerie Tiberius, University of Minnesota. Read the related paper: How Theories of Well-being Can Help Us Help in the latest issue of the Journal of Practical Ethics. I have a friend I’ll call Liam who is ruining his life. Liam is marrying the wrong man: someone controlling and unappreciative who seems to all the
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Being Angry at Zoella – What Moral Outrage Tells About Us
If you are like me you did not know who Zoe Sugg – known as Zoella – was before she published the fastest selling debut novel ever, “Girl Online”. Since then, I learned that Sugg is a video blogger on YouTube, publishing tips about beauty and life. More than 9 million people have subscribed to