-
A steamy calamari: trans-species eroticism and disgust
Imagine a naked, beautiful person of your preferred gender. Now imagine that they sensously fondle a sausage. They gently caress it, they lick it, they eventually insert it somewhere… While no doubt some of my readers have been turned off at this point, I think few would argue that depicting this scene is significantly more…
-
Comments on Practicalethicsnews
Practicalethicsnews is now 2 1/2 years old, and continues to grow. We are keen to improve this blog further, and are going to make a few changes in coming weeks. One change that we are trialling is an alteration to our comments policy. We are keen to encourage readers of our blog, including those who…
-
Is anti-ageing worth it?
The Telegraphs proclaims that Anti-ageing drugs 'will fuel euthanasia'. The origin of the story was a lecture by Dr David Gems at UCL. He pointed out that if people were to live much longer healthy lives more would choose to end them themselves, and that centralized control of birthrates might become necessary. Francis Fukuyama argued…
-
Comments policy
We encourage readers of our blog, including those who do not have a background in philosophy or ethics, to respond to posts and to engage in debate with our authors, and with each other. Comments should be polite, concise and relevant to the topic. Authors will respond to comments where possible, though may not respond…
-
How to Prescribe Smart Drugs to Children Ethically
Ilina Singh and colleagues argue that the use of drugs such as Ritalin among young people is becoming so common that family doctors should be able to prescribe them as study aids to school pupils aged under 18.(1) While the Guardian article rather cherry-picks from the range of Singh’s arguments in her original article, I…
-
George and the British election
Politics is the art of compromise, but rarely has compromise been so necessary a political virtue in Britain as it is today. Very soon we’ll know who’s done a deal with whom. The Liberal Democrats are the king-makers: ultimately they’ll decide whether to prop up a Tory or a Labour-led government. Let us be exceptionally…
-
Organ Donation Euthanasia
by Dominic Wilkinson and Julian Savulescu There are 8000 patients on transplant waiting lists in the UK. Every year 400 patients die while waiting for an organ to come available. We are all far more likely to be in need of an organ transplant than to be a donor. Most of us expect that if…
-
Lord Justice Nero?
There is a shrill, unpleasant new sound in the UK church. It is the sound of conservative Christians saying that they are persecuted. It’s the voice of a minority. And as Rowan Williams trenchantly observed: ‘The Church of England is like a swimming pool: all the noise comes from the shallow end.’ The claim of…
-
Is it wrong to vote tactically?
Tomorrow will see the closest election in the UK for many years and there is considerable debate about whether tactical voting is acceptable (see here, here, here). This is a particularly big issue this election as the Liberal Democrats (the UK's third largest party) have had a significant rise in popularity and the vote looks…
-
The privacy of the shrew
Is it wrong for documentary film makers to film intimate moments in the lives of non-human animals? David Attenborough has used fibroptic cameras to obtain views of the inside of a platypus’ nest, providing never-before-seen images of the birth and feeding of a newborn platypus. But imagine that he had used similar technology to obtain…