The end of conscientious objection?
A relationship counsellor, Gary McFarlane, 48, in Bristol was sacked in 2008 for refusing to provide sex therapy to a gay couple. He took action against his former employer, Relate Avon, arguing that it had failed to accommodate his C…
Read MoreDid Eyjafjallajokull Kill the Precautionary Principle?
In mid-April the airports of most major cities in Europe were closed for the better part of a week as a response to the presence of the volcanic ash cloud that spread over Europe as a consequence of the eruption of the Eyjaf…
Read MoreWhat intelligent alien life can tell us about morality
Stephen Hawking made some headlines when he recently argued that although it’s highly probable that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, it would be a grave mistake to try to actively try to establish contact with other inte…
Read MoreAre We Future Evil Aliens?
By: Julian Savulescu Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge physicist, has recently argued, in a Discovery channel documentary, that alien life forms probably exist somewhere in the Universe, but we should avoid contact with them. (http://news.bbc.…
Read MoreMorality: what’s disgust got to do with it?
Kathleen Taylor has got an interesting recent piece in the Guardian about the importance of the emotion of disgust for our moral lives. “If you had a dog”, she asks, “and it died a natural death, how would you feel about roasting and eating…
Read MorePolitical Responsibility
The prospect of a hung parliament following the upcoming election has raised several interesting ethical issues. One such issue which has been discussed is what are the responsibilities of the party which holds the balance of power? Should …
Read MoreI’m a taxpayer, I want my data!
A ruling by the Information Commissioner has ordered scientists at Queen’s University in Belfast to hand over copies of 40 years of research data on tree rings after a long battle with a climate sceptic. (PDF of the ruling) This is an impor…
Read MoreUpcoming Events in May 2010
25 May, 17:30, Lecture Theatre, Faculty of Philosophy, 10 Merton Street, Oxford 3rd Leverhulme Lecture "Are Addicts Responsible? Perspectives from Philosophy, Psychology, Neuroscience and Law" Professor Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (K…
Read MoreThe equal air-time solution for controversial research
When are placebos ethical in medical research? One common answer is that it is only appropriate to use placebos in research when there is no proven effective treatment for the condition (1). On this view, if there is a proven treatment plac…
Read MoreArguing about moral responsibility
Outside applied ethics and neuroethics, I work in philosophy of agency, specifically on the interlinked topics of free will and moral responsibility (interlinked because I, like most participants in the debate, understand free will, if it e…
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