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The nym wars: how many identities are enough?

The nym wars: how many identities are enough?

The biggest political question this year might not be national debts or the Arab Spring, but what form identity will take on the Internet in the future. As the Google+ service began demanding that people sign in with their legal names and suspending accounts believed to be in conflict with this policy, the “nym wars” broke out. Google is not alone in wanting to keep online identities strongly tied to legal identities: the National Geographic Society demands that comments on ScienceBlogs may no longer be pseudonymous, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has stated:

“Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.”

But can we live a human life with just one identity?

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Is Half an Abortion Worse than a Whole One?

Last week, the New York Times Magazine included an interesting article about abortion by Ruth Padawer. It provoked not a little angst and soul-searching among members of the pro-choice community, as well as some exultant pronouncements from anti-abortionists highlighting supposed inconsistencies in the pro-choice position.

The Times article profiled a number of women who chose to “reduce” their twin pregnancies to a single fetus, recounting the emotions and ethical issues grappled with by women, their partners, and the doctors who perform (or refuse to perform) this type of selective abortion. The procedure, which according to Padawer is “usually performed aound Week 12 of pregnancy”, involves the doctor selecting under an ultrasound scan a healthy fetus whose chest is lethally injected.  It shrivels in the womb, whilst its twin is carried to term. In the cases in question, the procedure is not performed for medical reasons, but because the woman has chosen for social reasons to carry only one child to term. Although reductions arose historically as a procedure that was medically indicated – reducing risky quint, quad or triplet pregnancies to twins that had a much better chance of survival – most practitioners have not recognized reduction below twins as having an adequate medical justification. Some practitioners consequently refuse to perform the procedure, but others perform it willingly. As Dr. Richard Berkowitz explained: “In a society where women can terminate a single pregnancy for any reason – financial, social, emotional – if we have a way to reduce a twin pregnancy with very little risk, isn’t it legitimate to offer that service to women with twins who want to reduce to a singleton?”  Dr. Berkowitz’s question is a good one, as is the main question that Padawer raises: “What is it about terminating half a twin pregnancy that seems more controversial than reducing triplets to twins or aborting a single fetus? After all, the math’s the same either way: one fewer fetus.”

So what is it that makes “terminating half a twin pregnancy” seem more controversial than aborting a single fetus? Does our  almost universal uneasiness about it show a fundamental inconsistency in pro-choice thinking, or is there a consistent pro-choice position that pays sufficient respect both to a woman’s presumed right to choose, and to our uneasy intuitive reactions to twin reduction?

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Philosophy is the transformation of sheep

By Charles Foster

Over the last week English hoodies took to the streets to burn, smash and pillage and, (an almost equally distressing sight), the pop-sociologists of England took to the op-ed columns to tell us why. We’ve had no end of explanations. I’m no more qualified to add to them than most of the original writers were to promulgate them. But whatever the explanation is, it has to account for the fact that this was by no means a primal scream from the nation’s disenfranchised: alongside the youths who may have been expressing their turbulent  pasts and hopeless presents, were estate agents, Olympic ambassadors and law students who were ruining their promising futures. The deep causes are beyond me, but the most proximate, obvious (and possibly the only) cause for the vast majority was simply that they were following others. Why did A get involved? Because B did. And why did B get involved? Because C did. At one (and perhaps all levels), this was no more a revolution than sheep baa-ing after each other through a gate.

If alienation was the cause, as many said, from what were the participants alienated? From their ability to make up their own minds, and hence from themselves. If disenfranchisement, from what decision-making process? Their own.Read More »Philosophy is the transformation of sheep

Announcement: International Neuroethics Society Annual Meeting

The 2011 annual meeting of the International Neuroethics Society will be held in Washington DC from November 10 and 11, and registration is now open. A number of contributors to the Practical Ethics and Neuroethics blogs will be in attendance. Some highlights of the programme include: Panel discussion on “Social knowledge and the evolution of… Read More »Announcement: International Neuroethics Society Annual Meeting

Ableist Language

Recently we have seen the stirrings in the philosophical blogosphere of a campaign, spearheaded by Shelley Tremain, to highlight and increase sensitivity to the use of ‘ableist’ language. Ableist language stands to disability in the way that sexist language stands to gender. Just as we now avoid certain kinds of language because it suggests –… Read More »Ableist Language

Abortion and Equality

During the year I’ve just spent in the US, several of the ethical issues commonly discussed in the media – gay marriage, assisted suicide, whether there should be universal health care, along with several others – have seemed to me largely unproblematic in themselves. The main issue in each case is how to deal politically… Read More »Abortion and Equality

“Focus Pocus” and Beyond: consumer brain computer interfaces for health, self-improvement and fun

 In September 2011 ,the most advanced computer game to use a consumer brain computer interface (BCI) will go on sale. Its name is Focus Pocus (see video trailer here, its awesome) and it is aimed at children with ADHD so that they might use gamification to train their brains to improve focus and impulse control.

Use your brain to battle an evil necromancer!

The game is based on neurofeedback enabled by the use of the Neurosky dry-electrode EEG (Electro-EncephaloGram) headset, which anyone can purchase for under $100 (or 100 Euros if in Europe)  Earlier this week, BBC2 did a special on the headset. The basic Idea is that the single electrode on the Neurosky headset (placed on the forehead) is able to pick up a few simple and characteristic brainwaves (created by activity in populations of neurons), some that have been shown to be enriched when the subject is awake and attentive (ex. Beta-waves), and some when the subject is relaxed (ex. alpha waves). Neurosky has developed algorithms to funnel these and other brain waves into measures of “focus” and “meditation.” Look here for more details on how it works.

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The Myth of Elite Sport

In an interesting article, “Why we’re the best”, Oliver Poole writing in the Evening Standard yesterday claims: Culture, environment and genes are all cited as reasons for sporting success. But it is practice that really makes perfect. He cites evidence that it not some genetic advantage that makes Kenyan runners so great but the fact… Read More »The Myth of Elite Sport

Danegeld

by Ole Martin Moen, Ph.D. student in philosophy at University of Oslo and upcoming visitor at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics

Since February, the Danish sailor Jan Quist Johansen, his wife, Birgit, and their three children, Rune, Hjalte and Naja, have been held hostage by Somali pirates. After a failed rescue attempt in March, the family has been treated brutally and many now claim that if the ransom is not paid immediately, they risk execution – just as two American couples, Jean and Scott Adams, and Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle, were executed by pirates earlier this year when ransoms were not paid in time.

The human cost of refusing to pay is high. Sadly, however, the human cost of paying is even higher.

By paying the pirates, we encourage piracy – and the reason why the Johansen family is now held hostage is that over recent years, countries and companies have made it customary to pay ransoms when pirates seize ships. This policy has led to a dramatic increase in both the number of seizures and the size of demands. In 2009, Somali pirates received $58 million in ransoms; in 2010, they received $238 million. The current year of 2011 is on its way to hit a new record high, and Geopolicity Inc. has estimated the piracy “market” to be worth between $4.9 billion and $8.3 billion.

No one should be surprised that by paying hundreds of millions of dollars in ransoms, we have gotten more of what we have paid for. History has taught us this time and time again. Yet every time, we have forgotten our hard-earned lesson.

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