Last weekend’s work was greatly enlivened for me by keeping track of the updates for Trinity Jailbreak. The challenge: 37 student teams had 36 hours to get as far from Trinity College Dublin as possible, without spending any money. They were, however, allowed to blag, persuade, and get corporate sponsorship to aid their “getaways”. Pre-contest,… Read More »Sponsoring student adventures, with added charity.
Yesterday, Charles Foster discussed the recent study showing that Facebook ‘Likes’ can be plugged into an algorithm to predict things about people – things about their demographics, their habits and their personalities – that they didn’t explicitly disclose. Charles argued that, even though the individual ‘Likes’ were voluntarily published, to use an algorithm to generate further predictions would be unethical on the grounds that individuals have not consented to it and, consequently, that to go ahead and do it anyway is a violation of their privacy.
I wish to make three points contesting his strong conclusion, instead offering a more qualified position: simply running the algorithm on publically available ‘Likes’ data is not unethical, even if no consent has been given. Doing particular things based on the output of the algorithm, however, might be.Read More »A reply to ‘Facebook: You are your ‘Likes”
Interview announcement
This is a brief note to alert the readers of Practical Ethics that research by myself, Anders Sandberg, and Julian Savulescu on the potential therapeutic uses of “love drugs” and “anti-love drugs” has recently been featured in an interview for the national Canadian broadcast program, “Q” with Jian Ghomeshi (airing on National Public Radio in the United States).
Here is a link to the interview.
Readers may also be interested in checking out a new website, “Love in the Age of Enhancement” which collects the various academic essays, magazine articles, and media coverage of these arguments concerning the neuroenhancement of human relationships.
Read More »Brief announcement: Interview about ‘love drugs’ on “Q” with Jian Ghomeshi
The most recent St. Cross Ethics Seminar took place on February 28th, 2013. Kyle Edwards, who is currently a DPhil Candidate at Oxford, led it. Her informative and compelling presentation was entitled “Methods of Legitimation: How Ethics Committees Decide Which Reasons Count.”
(A podcast of the seminar is located here: http://media.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/uehiro/HT13STX_KE.mp3)
By Charles Foster
When you click ‘Like’ on Facebook, you’re giving away a lot more than you might think. Your ‘Likes’ can be assembled by an algorithm into a terrifyingly accurate portrait.
Here are the chances of an accurate prediction: Single v in a relationship: 67%; Parents still together when you were 21: 60%; Cigarette smoking: 73%; Alcohol drinking: 70%; Drug-using: 65%; Caucasian v African American: 95%; Christianity v Islam: 82%; Democrat v Republican: 85%; Male homosexuality: 88%; Female homosexuality: 75%; Gender: 93%.Read More »Facebook: You are your ‘Likes’
It is now quite common to draw distinctions between three types of philosophical ethics. Practical ethics is meant to concern substantive moral issues facing many of us each day, such as abortion or climate change. Read More »Practical Ethics and Philosophy
In this talk, (which you can listen to here) Neil Levy brings a new perspective to the debate concerning the moral responsibility of psychopaths. Previously, this debate has been thought to turn on the question of whether psychopaths have moral knowledge. Here, Levy argues that regardless of whether psychopaths count as having moral knowledge, we ought to believe that they lack moral responsibility on the grounds that their intentions don’t have the kinds of contents that can underwrite full-blown moral responsibility.Read More »Neil Levy: ‘Psychopaths and Responsibility’ – Podcast
When I get married in July, I’m changing my name. My fiancee and I are both taking her maternal grandmother’s name “MacAskill”, putting us in the good company of Giant MacAskill – possibly the world’s strongest ever man – and Danny MacAskill – a trial-biking legend. Why?
On Monday 4th of March, the Centre for Practical Ethics hosted a joint lecture on the evaluation of the effectiveness of charitable organizations, given by Toby Ord and Harry Shannon. Their lectures and ensuing discussion covered a range of different topics, including the numerical methods for assessing the effectiveness of a charity, the philosophical concepts… Read More »New Podcast: Toby Ord and Harry Shannon on Effective Philanthropy
I’ve been to Cologne recently, one of Germany’s main Carnival cities. In the window of a shop I passed, I saw some residues of the just ended Carnival season for sale – amongst other things, a Native American costume. Like many others of the sort, it consisted of a brown faux suede suit, a colourful feather hair decoration, and a little fake axe. And – not to my surprise – it showed far more skin that it concealed. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture. However, “Indian” Carnival and Halloween costumes like that can be found all over the internet, may it be in the (sadly unavoidable) “sexy” women’s version like the one I saw, or in the male “warrior / chief” version.
