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Reducing the Power of Childless Cat Ladies?
JD Vance’s 2021 comments on how the Democrats are run by “childless cat ladies” are obviously – and probably deliberately – offensive, but the broader point of his remarks is one that’s worth considering. Vance’s broader point was that people without children “don’t really have a direct stake” in the country. He means, of course,…
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Should Evangelicals Support IVF?
written by Christopher Register Evangelicals and other pro-life advocates have underappreciated reasons to support in vitro fertilization (IVF) and funding for maternal health and reproductive technologies in general. These reasons stem from the surprisingly high rate of natural miscarriage. I suggest that advances in IVF technology may ultimately lead to fewer total embryos being miscarried…
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Can We Make Life Choices Rationally?
Written by Daniel Villiger Do I want to have children? This is one of the big life decisions. If I choose to have a child and am successful, I will become a parent and will experience the ups and downs, the advantages and disadvantages of being a parent. On the other hand, if I choose…
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Building A World People Can Use
Written by Rebecca Brown Imagine going to a cafe for a drink and snack. At some point you need the loo – you go to the bathroom but discover the toilet seat is higher than your waist! Somehow you manage to clamber up, unfortunately touching parts of a toilet you would prefer you didn’t have…
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Should There be Total Divestment From All Arms Companies?
Written by MSt student Mahdi Ghuloom Reports this year from May indicate that the college council of Trinity College Cambridge, has voted to divest from all arms companies (Mulla, 2024). Pressure has been rising from students on universities to conduct similar actions, often in a non-discriminatory set of demands. Some of course, have been focusing…
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Consenting to or Requesting Medical Care?
Written by Joseph Moore Earlier this year, Alex Ruck Keene KC (Hon) delivered a Practical Ethics and Law Lecture at the Uehiro Centre on the topic of consent and autonomy-based arguments in medical ethics and law, to which the Centre’s Esther Braun responded. In the course of this enlightening discussion (and in private conversation since),…
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Guest Post: AI Alignment or Human Alignment?
Written by Professor Cinara Nahra One of the most important issues that arises in relation to artificial intelligence is how to handle it, that is, how to make AI something that can be developed for the good of humanity and not to promote its destruction. This is directly linked to the problem of aligning artificial…
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Caution With Chatbots? Generative AI in Healthcare
Written by MSt in Practical Ethics student Dr Jeremy Gauntlett-Gilbert Human beings, as a species, love to tell stories and to imagine that there are person-like agents behind events. The Ancient Greeks saw the rivers and the winds as personalised deities, placating them if they appeared ‘angry’. Psychologists in classic 1940s experiments were impressed at…
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Philosophy in Prison
A new branch of outreach from the Uehiro Centre By Joanna Demaree-Cotton From this summer, a number of our academics and graduate students will be swapping their offices and lecture halls to teach in a different kind of venue: UK prisons. Philosophy In Prison is a wonderful, small, UK-based charity. Run by philosophers, they organise…
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The Fruits of Moral Disagreement: Conversations and Questions from the Inaugural Ethox-Uehiro Workshop on Moral Disagreement
By Tess Johnson (Ethox Centre) and Alberto Giubilini (Uehiro Oxford Institute) On the 11th of June, 2024, members of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics (soon to become Uehiro Oxford Institute) and the Ethox gathered at St. Anne’s College for an afternoon discussion on the nature, value, and disvalue of moral disagreement, as part…