Considering the Instrumentalization and Exploitation of Elite Athletes
Why did Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye not wear helmets during their boxing fight a few weeks ago? Actually, they do tend to wear them during training, but obviously not when an official boxing match takes place. Why not? Presumably, it …
Read MoreBlaming victims, individuals or social structures?
When the Swedish politician Erik Hellsborn of the rather xenophobic Sweden Democrats party blogged that the massacre in Norway was really due to mass immigration and islamization that had driven the killer to extremes (link in Swedish), he …
Read MoreEnhanced Consequentialism: Up, Up… and Away?
Last week Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal featured a fun, and genuinely thought-provoking, cartoon. Click below to see the cartoon at FULL SIZE, then come back to hear my take on it: Poor Superman, trapped in a spiral of consequentialist …
Read MoreWhat is the point of being a doctor when conscience overrules professional duties?
A new study recently published on the Journal of Medical Ethics and reported by the newspapers explored the attitude towards conscientious objection of 733 medical students from four different UK medical schools (Cardiff University, King’s…
Read MoreThe unexpected turn: from the democratic Internet to the Panopticon
In the last ten years ICTs (information and communication technologies) have been increasingly used by militaries both to develop new weapons and to improve communication and propaganda campaigns. So much so that military often refers to ‘i…
Read MoreAnnouncement: An international conference on human embryo research
The following guest post is an announcement by David Albert Jones, director of the Ansombe Bioethics Centre, Oxford www.bioethics.org.uk How do we decide what protection to extend to the human embryo? On 8 September 2011 at Corpus Christi …
Read MoreGovernment encourages traumatic brain injury on city streets?
I was just in LA. I was surprised and pleased when a good friend of mine mentioned this brilliant new transportation scheme the city had developed. Basically, with sponsorship from a few businesses the city had placed hundreds of electric c…
Read MoreThe Need for a Progressive Neuroethics
Neuroscience is challenging previously maintained notions about the structure and function of nervous systems, the basis of consciousness, and the nature of the brain-mind-self relationship. Such developments prompt re-examination of concep…
Read More“The Madness of Normality” – On why the DMS-5 is fundamentally wrong
The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) is the world widely recognized classificatory system of psychiatric disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). It is currently under major revision; th…
Read MoreWhen it’s unethical to be a well-published academic
Publishing pointless papers is unethical. There are four reasons: (a) It’s a form of plagiarism to translate old thoughts into new language and pass off the translated thoughts as one’s own. The very act of publication carries t…
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