-
How many friends do you need?
The title of Robin Dunbar’s recently published book asks a good question: How many friends does one person need? (http://www.faber.co.uk/work/how-many-friends-does-one-person-need/9780571253425/) Dunbar suggests that a human being can’t have more than about 150 friends (or ‘acquaintances’, as the book itself somewhat revealingly puts it). But of course it all depends on who we count as a…
-
Shall Ape be Allowed to Kill Ape?
It is widely accepted that it is immoral to cause gratuitous harm to animals, and indeed there are many charities that have been set up around the world, such as the RSPCA (see: http://www.rspca.org.uk/home) to prevent harm to animals and to promote animal welfare. Some organisations want to go further than mere protection of animals,…
-
Eugenics or ‘reprogenetics’? Call it what you will, but let’s do it
As The Times recently reports: “British couples are to be offered a groundbreaking genetic test that would virtually eliminate their chances of having a baby with one of more than 100 inherited diseases. The simple saliva test, which identifies whether prospective parents carry genetic mutations that could cause life-threatening disorders such as cystic fibrosis,…
-
Cognitive enhancers: unfair at any dose?
How should universities tackle the use of cognitive enhancement drugs by students? Professor Barbara Sahakian raised the issue in a recent talk. While hard numbers are hard to come by, it is likely that at least a few percent of university students take drugs believed to improve cognitive ability. This may give them advantages that…
-
Coma Confusion Resolved
Back in November, I blogged about the case of Rom Houben, a man who after more than two decades in what was apparently a persistent vegetative state was found to be conscious. Following the newspaper reports of the time – as I noted at the time, I had nothing to go on except newspaper reports…
-
Climate scientists behaving badly? Part 5: virtue in testimony.
We now consider a couple of testimonial virtues. Sincerity of testimony There has been reason to be worried about the sincerity of public testimony by climate scientists for twenty years, ever since Professor Schneider of Stanford (now a senior member of the UN’s IPCC) said that scientists should ‘offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic…
-
What is the most moral way to use embryos?
By: Francesca Minerva Reading this news about a couple that donated two embryos to another sterile couple, I started to ask myself if embryo donation is really the most moral way to use embryos. Some people, indeed, suggest that this choice is the one that people who take into account human life should take. We…
-
Ending It, in Paternia
In the Republic of Paternia there has, of late, been a vigorous debate on the question of whether the law should change to permit marital separation in some circumstances. Some desperate Paternian couples have been illegally travelling abroad to engage in marital separations in Switterland (where they are permitted for now, though the Switts are…
-
Renaming a Disorder
What’s in a name? Quite a lot, considering the huge commotion over proposed revisions to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Almost a thousand pages long, this psychiatric bible is used all over the world to classify and diagnose mental patients – it’s the definitive authority on that nebulous concept known as…
-
The worth of a life and a life worth living
There has been a lot of discussion about health care rationing in the North American media over the last year, much of it hysterical and barely coherent. A number of respected ethicists have tried to make the case for rationing, including Peter Singer in the New York Times last year, and recently John Freeman. This…