Libya and Moral Responsibility
Much of the ongoing debate about Libya has rested on what I believe to the mistaken philosophical premise that the United States, or any other potential intervening party, becomes more morally responsible for the fate of Libya if it chooses…
Read MoreMurder in an English Village
Midsomer Murders is an ITV drama based around English village life: it pulls in millions of viewers and has been running for over a decade. The co-creator of the series has just been suspended for saying he deliberately kept ethnic minori…
Read MoreA tale of two reactors
Right now, by sheer chance I am sitting in the same chair, in the same place in Stockholm, as when I first heard the news about the Chernobyl accident. But today it is the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan that has had an explosion.There are…
Read MoreGalliano, Westboro Baptists, and the question of free speech
Despite the protestations of Albert Sydner, the father of a young soldier killed in Iraq, the American Supreme Court has ruled in favour of the Westboro Baptist’s right to picket military funerals. The religious group has demonstrated at 20…
Read MoreHow to Stop the Medical Killing Spree
According to a recent study, around 350 patients die in Australian hospitals every two weeks. The figure would be expected to be much higher in the UK. Prof Jeff Richardson, from Monash University, appropriately said, “The issue of ad…
Read MoreDoes euthanizing animals lead to the devaluing of human life?
Not long ago a study on British veterinarian suicide rates [Bartram, D.J. and Baldwin, D.S., ‘Veterinary surgeons and suicide: influences, opportunities and research directions’, Veterinary Record 162(2): 36-40] received a bit of media atte…
Read MoreShould Conservative Christians be Allowed to Care for Our Children?
Eunice and Owen Johns are Christian Pentecostalists who believe that sexual relations other than those within marriage between one man and one woman are morally wrong. They also want to be foster parents. Should they be allowed to care for …
Read MoreWho should be allowed to foster?
A Christian couple have been blocked in their attempt to foster children this week. Eunice and Owen Johns had applied to Court to prevent Derby city council from continuously stalling their application to foster children. The council was do…
Read MoreNothing is like mother’s ice cream
The Icecreamists, an ice cream parlour in Covent Garden began selling a human breast-milk based ice cream last month, only to have it confiscated recently by Westminster Council in order to check that it was “fit for human consumption…
Read MoreEthical Lessons From Locked-In Syndrome: What Is a Living Hell?
A recent important study by Stephen Laureys and colleagueson what it is like to be to experience severe brain damage has been widely reported. (eg, http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/locked-patients-life/story?id=12984627). Laureys and c…
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