Honesty and Science
Honesty is a virtue. The strange thing about honesty is that we do not seem to see even the simplest aspect, telling the truth when it is owed, as a duty. People who would be horrified at hurting anyone will trim, twist, exaggerate and lie …
Read MoreLet’s get rid of Heaven, Hell is what we need! (?)
In the beginning of this week, PLoS ONE published an interesting article suggesting that a country’s crime rates depend on the religious believes its population holds: Societies that believe in heaven are more criminal than societies that b…
Read MoreTo kill or to violate?
By Charles Foster A highly intelligent 32 year old woman has profound anorexia. She has had it for years. It is complicated by alcohol and opiate dependency, and by personality disorder. Her BMI is 11.3. A healthy BMI is around 20. Less tha…
Read MoreCyberwarfare: No New Ethics Needed
In an interesting recent essay in the Atlantic – ‘Is it Possible to Wage a Just Cyberwar?’ – Patrick Lin, Fritz Allhoff, and Neil Rowe argue that events such as the Stuxnet cyberattack on Iran suggest that the way we fight wars …
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Should you take ecstasy to improve your marriage? Not so fast …
Love drugs and science reporting in the media: Setting the record straight By Brian D. Earp, Julian Savulescu, and Anders Sandberg Love. It makes the world go round. It is the reason we have survived as a species. It is the subject of our …
Read MoreThe Diversity that Dare Not Speak Its Name
This is a guest post by Dave Frame. Many thanks to him for contributing! Over the last few years, researchers have pointed out a dimension along which there is an extraordinary lack of diversity in the academic social sciences and h…
Read MoreBanning Junk Food Ads On Disney Media Outlets: A “Game-Changer”, or a Mickey Mouse Measure?
Yesterday, with the help of first lady Michelle Obama, the Walt Disney Company announced that from 2015, it will no longer allow the advertisement of junk food on its media outlets (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18336478). This …
Read MoreJust War Theory and Cyber Warfare
Lin’s, Allhoff’s and Rowe’s article in yesterday’s “The Atlantic” could have not been more timely. In the previous week a new cyber weapons has been ‘discovered’, the Flame; the New York Times reported the story behind one of the most famou…
Read MoreThe Queen’s an anachronism: another problem with predicting the future
The Queen serve many roles, it seems. She provides stability to the British government, fosters links with the ex-colonies, promotes tourism, serves a safe focus for nationalist sentiment, gives the nation a centralised way of taking care o…
Read MorePhilosophical Shock Tactics
Not long ago Peter Singer sent a shock wave around his home country when on national television he provided an ethical justification for bestiality. This year three analytical philosophers were taken aback at the ridicule they attracted for…
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