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  • Cross Post: Liberal or conservative? Most of our beliefs shift around

    Written by Prof Neil Levy, Senior Research Fellow, Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford This article was originally published on The Conversation What? Okay, that sounds good. Justin Lane/EPA One common reaction to the election of Donald Trump (and perhaps to a lesser extent, the Brexit vote) among liberals like me is an

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  • Cross Post: Solomon’s frozen judgement

    Written by Anders Sandberg This post was originally published on Andert II A girl dying of cancer wanted to use cryonic preservation to have a chance at being revived in the future. While supported by her mother the father disagreed; in a recent high court ruling, the judge found that she could be cryopreserved. As the

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  • Functional neo-Aristotelianism as a way to preserve moral agency: A response to Dr William Casebeer’s lecture: The Neuroscience of Moral Agency

    Written by Dr Anibal Monasterio Astobiza Audio File of Dr Casebeer’s talk is available here: http://media.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/uehiro/HT17_Casebeer.mp3   Dr. William Casebeer has an unusual, but nonetheless very interesting, professional career. He retired from active duty as a US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and intelligence analyst. He obtained his PhD in Cognitive Science and Philosophy from University of

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  • Cross Post: Our political beliefs predict how we feel about climate change

    Written by Prof Neil Levy Originally published on The Conversation The man who called global warming a fabrication invented by the Chinese to make US manufacturing less competitive is now president-elect of the US. His followers expect him to withdraw the US from the Paris climate change agreement and eliminate the environmental regulations introduced by

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  • Good Enough Lives – Procreative Satisficence

    By Dominic Wilkinson @Neonatalethics   Should parents undertake prenatal testing? Is there a moral reason to prevent disability in your future child through embryo selection? In a special Moral Philosophy Seminar yesterday evening, Professor Tom Shakespeare, from the University of East Anglia, gave a nuanced and multi-faceted argument against the arguments advanced by Julian Savulescu

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  • Four myths about IVF in older women

    Dominic Wilkinson, @Neonatalethics Reports that a 62-year-old Spanish woman has given birth after IVF treatment have led many to question whether there should be age limits with such treatment. Lina Alvarez, a doctor in north-west Spain, isn’t the oldest person to have had success with IVF. Earlier this year, in India, Daljinder Kaur is said

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  • The bright side of Brexit

    Let’s suppose, entirely hypothetically and for the sake of argument, that Brexit is a disaster for the UK. Let’s suppose that sterling crashes; that foreign travel is punishingly expensive and that, if you can afford to go abroad, you’re a laughing stock. Let’s suppose that the Treasury’s estimates of billions of pounds of losses each

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  • Announcement: 3rd Annual Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics

    Graduate and undergraduate students currently enrolled at the University of Oxford in any subject are invited to enter the Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics by submitting an essay of up to 2000 words on any topic relevant to practical ethics.  Eligibility includes visiting students who are registered as recognized students, and paying fees, but

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  • The Clickbait Candidate

    By James Williams (@WilliamsJames_) Note: This is a cross-post with Quillette magazine. While ‘interrobang’ sounds like a technique Donald Trump might add to the Guantanamo Bay playbook, it in fact refers to a punctuation mark: a disused mashup of interrogation and exclamation that indicates shock, surprise, excitement, or disbelief. It looks like this: ‽ (a rectangle means your font doesn’t

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  • Guest Post: Mind the accountability gap: On the ethics of shared autonomy between humans and intelligent medical devices

    Guest Post by Philipp Kellmeyer Imagine you had epilepsy and, despite taking a daily cocktail of several anti-epileptic drugs, still suffered several seizures per week, some minor, some resulting in bruises and other injuries. The source of your epileptic seizures lies in a brain region that is important for language. Therefore, your neurologist told you, epilepsy

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