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Doing Good and Being Bad: The Presidents Club, Charity and Moral Licensing.
Last January, an article in the Financial Times broke a story about a men-only charity event run by the Presidents Club, a charitable trust set up to raise money for “worthy children’s causes.” Allegations were made by undercover journalists who attended the black tie event as ‘hostesses,’ 130 of whom were hired to attend the…
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Press Release: Alfie Evans Case
by Dominic Wilkinson @Neonatalethics In the light of the media attention today, I have gathered together some of the material relating to the ethics of this case
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Video Series: Tom Douglas Defends the Chemical Castration of Sex Offenders
The Minister of Justice in the UK wants to dramatically increase the use of chemical castration in sex offenders to reduce their risk of reoffending.Dr Tom Douglas (University of Oxford) argues that offering chemical castration to sex offenders might be a better option than current practices to prevent sex offenders from reoffending (e.g. incarceration), and…
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Should Iceland Ban Circumcision? A Legal and Ethical Analysis
By Lauren Notini and Brian D. Earp *Note: a condensed version of this article titled “Iceland’s Proposed Circumcision Ban” is being cross-published at Pursuit. For a small country, Iceland has had a big impact on global media coverage recently, following its proposed ban on male circumcision before an age of consent. Iceland’s proposed legislation seeks…
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Ethical AI Kills Too: An Assement of the Lords Report on AI in the UK
Hazem Zohny and Julian Savulescu Cross-posted with the Oxford Martin School Developing AI that does not eventually take over humanity or turn the world into a dystopian nightmare is a challenge. It also has an interesting effect on philosophy, and in particular ethics: suddenly, a great deal of the millennia-long debates on the good and…
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Should PREDICTED Smokers Get Transplants?
By Tom Douglas Jack has smoked a packet a day since he was 22. Now, at 52, he needs a heart and lung transplant. Should he be refused a transplant to allow a non-smoker with a similar medical need to receive one? More generally: does his history of smoking reduce his claim to scarce medical…
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Groundhog Day and Legal Appeals. (What if Alfie Were a Texan?)
By Dominic Wilkinson @Neonatalethics According to media reports, the family of seriously ill infant Alfie Evans have decided to lodge a second appeal to the Supreme Court today. This is the 6th legal appeal mounted since the High Court decision, on the 20th February, that continued medical treatment was not in Alfie’s best interests.…
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Mind Control, Free Will, and Jessica Jones
By Hazem Zohny In the first season of the Netflix show Jessica Jones, our traumatized, alcoholic protagonist is up against a particularly nasty villain: Kilgrave. He is a mind-controller and complete psychopath. A virus he emits compels people around him to do whatever he commands. Early in the season, he makes a young woman, Hope,…
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What is ‘Practical’ Ethics?
By Roger Crisp This is an exciting time for practical ethics in Oxford. The University has recently launched a new Masters in Practical Ethics, organized by the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and the Department for Continuing Education. Applicants are currently being assessed for admission, and the course begins in earnest in October. But…
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Facebook, Big Data, and the Trust of the Public
By Mackenzie Graham Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg recently appeared before members of the United States Congress to address his company’s involvement in the harvesting and improper distribution of approximately 87 million Facebook profiles —about 1 million of them British— to data collecting app Cambridge Analytica. In brief, Cambridge Analytica is a British political consulting firm,…