Sex and Punishment: How Old Do You Have to Be?
By Maximilian Kiener In March 2022, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte signed a bill that increased the minimum age for sexual consent from 12 to 16 years. This bill marked a significant change to a previous law that dated back to…
Read MorePress release: Battersbee final* appeal rejected
by Dominic Wilkinson In the latest legal hearing, in a long running dispute about treatment for brain-injured 12 year old Archie Battersbee, the Court of Appeal yesterday rejected his family’s request to delay stopping treatment until a UN …
Read MoreEpistemic Diligence and Honesty
Written by Rebecca Brown All else being equal, it is morally good for agents to be honest. That is, agents shouldn’t, without good reason, engage in non-honest behaviours such as lying, cheating or stealing. What counts as a ‘good reason’ w…
Read MoreEvent Summary: Hope in Healthcare – a talk by Professor Steve Clarke
In a special lecture on 14 June 2022, Professor Steve Clarke presented work co-authored with Justin Oakley, ‘Hope in Healthcare’. It is widely supposed that it is important to imbue patients undergoing medical procedures with a …
Read MoreCan You Really Do More than What Duty Requires?
By Roger Crisp Your legal duties are what the law demands of you: to pay your taxes, not to park on yellow lines. Moral duties are what morality demands of you: to keep your promises, not to kill the innocent. Most think it’s possible to &#…
Read MoreThe Morality of Sending Asylum Seekers to Rwanda
Written by Doug McConnell The government has recently claimed that their policy to send asylum seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda as part of the UK-Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership is “completely moral” and responds to…
Read MoreThe Homeric Power of Advance Directives
By Charles Foster [Image: Ulysses and the Sirens: John William Waterhouse, 1891: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne] We shouldn’t underestimate Homer’s hold on us. Whether or not we’ve ever read him, he created many o…
Read MorePress Release: Court of Appeal decision in Dance & Battersbee (respondents/appellants) v Barts Health NHS Trust
by Dominic Wilkinson Archie is legally alive, and the legal decision about whether it is in his best interests to keep him alive now needs to be revisited in the High Court. Today, the Court of Appeal made a decision in the case of Archie B…
Read MoreTrack Thyself? Personal Information Technology and the Ethics of Self-knowledge
Written by Muriel Leuenberger The ancient Greek injunction “Know Thyself” inscribed at the temple of Delphi represents just one among many instances where we are encouraged to pursue self-knowledge. Socrates argued that “examining myself an…
Read MoreShould Parents be Able to Decline Consent for Brain Death Testing in a Child?
by Dominic Wilkinson In the recently reported case of Archie Battersbee, a 12 year old boy with severe brain damage from lack of oxygen, a judge declared that he had died on 31st May. This was almost eight weeks after his tragic accident, a…
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