Sam Harris can sting. Well known for his sharp criticisms of religion, this social gadfly has picked a new target: moral philosophy. His recent TED talk and later articles about the science of morality (here and here) have caused a bit of a…

A quick reminder that Practical Ethics News will host the 109th Philosophers' Carnival on 7th June.  Don't forget to nominate your favourite (recent) philosophy blog post via this link. Posts need not be on the topic of practi…

There is no end to human suffering. There is a distinct end to the amount of money that governments will spend on reducing it. Someone has to make decisions about healthcare resource allocation. I am very glad it’s not me. Many tools are us…

Synthetic biology has been catapulted into the public sphere after an article in Science reported that Craig Venter and his collaborators had managed to make a synthetic cell by inserting a fabricated genome into a bacterium. Th…

The Science and Religious Conflict Project team here at Oxford has recently finished hosting a major international conference on Religion, Tolerance and Intolerance (For details see: http://www.bep.ox.ac.uk/archive_events_data/religion_and_…

Nigel Warburton interviews Walter Sinnot Armstrong and Julian Savulescu on addiction Addiction – Sinnot-Armstrong and Savulescu

by Nick Shackel I think it would be fair to say that, insofar as people think about it at all, most people think that being an addict is a property some people have. Just like people can be tall or friendly or wealthy, people can be addicts…

by Julian Savulescu Walter argues that addiction is: 1. a disorder of self-control that comes in degrees. It is essentially pathological self-control, like compulsive hand-washing, where the addict has limited control in some circumstances …

In a recent piece for Prospect magazine, Philip Ball denounces the “playing God” objection, often made against some proposed uses of biotechnology, as a “meaningless, dangerous cliché”. More specifically, Ball mentions the objection in rela…

Professor Walter Sinnot-Armstrong gave a Leverhulme lecture last night on the question of addiction and responsibility.  Click on the image or the link below to download or view a pdf of his presentation. "Are addicts responsible…