The title of this post is an edited version of a headline that appeared this week at ABC news. The story behind it is that a Californian politician named Mary was caught shoplifting, and her lawyer says that her impaired judgment may have b…

A friend of mine recently returned from a visit to a beautiful and imposing villa, now the British ambassador’s residence in Rome. During World War II it housed the German embassy, and prisoners were tortured in the cellars. The swimming po…

It was probably hard for the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) to avoid getting plenty of coal in its Christmas stockings this year, sent from various parties who felt NSABB were either stifling academic freedom or …

‘There is no right not to be offended!’: It’s a popular  slogan.  At least, it must be if Google is anything to go by. I typed the phrase ‘no right not to be offended’ into ‘advanced search’ and came up with ‘about’ 1,780,000 sites.  The sl…

Christmas is about giving.  But giving how much?  £50 might seem like a lot for a Christmas present.  But how about giving 50% of your annual wage? There are now-familiar arguments that we in rich countries ought to give a lot more to the d…

The airwaves buzzed last week on BBC radio about biological predispositions towards violence, brain-based lie detection systems, tumors associated with pedophilia, and psychopaths.  The BBC looked to the Neuroethics Centre’s own Walter Sino…

A 23 – year old has given birth to conjoined twins in Brazil. The two boys have separate brains and spinal columns, but share other major organs, including heart, lungs and liver.   The twins, who have dicephalic parapagus, an extremely rar…

By Charles Foster Christmas comes but once a year. But that is no reason to let down your philosophical guard. Here are four reasons why it might be philosophically justifiable to celebrate Christmas.

For many of us, there is probably no better time of year to think about weakness of will. Some will be mentally preparing themselves to resist the temptations of the Christmas table, while others, already knowing that in their case such pre…

Primaquine is an anti-malarial drug. When taken as a single dose by someone infected with the falciparum malaria parasite, it reduces the risk of transmission to mosquitoes and so to other people. However it confers no direct benefit on the…