Over at the New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert discusses some new books on the policy implications of so-called 'positive psychology'. Positive psychologists set out to use scientific methods to study, not suffering, depression and psych…

Once upon a time, there were a queen and a king who had three children, all of them boys. They both loved their children dearly and made sure they had everything they might need to flourish. Nevertheless, the queen and her husband still fel…

Israel has come up with a new answer. In Israel, many orthodox Jews will accept an organ but have religious objections to donating one. It has one of the lowest organ donation rates. So there is a move to change this: sign a donor card, and…

Is it true that “everyone’s a winner”, as Julian Savulescu suggested recently on this blog , if we price life and body parts? Let’s accept that if there is a valid objection to buying and selling body parts, it must be grounded in the recog…

When doing something is worse than doing nothingBy: Julian Savulescu According to a study reported in the Guardian, when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for exam…

By: Julian Savulescu Imagine someone offered you £1 000 000 to cross a busy road. There is a small chance you might lose your life or a limb. But most people would accept the chance. I certainly would. We do that kind of thing every day for…

Mariarosaria Taddeo BBC news (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8511711.stm) reported yesterday that the US Senate is about to appoint Lt General Keith Alexander as head of the U.S. Cyber Command (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta…

“Insofar as modern liberal discourse rests on a distinction between reasons that emerge in the course of disinterested observation — secular reasons — and reasons that flow from a prior metaphysical commitment, it hasn’t got a leg to stand …

The Family Court in Brisbance this week authorised a hysterectomy for a severely disabled 11 year old girl. Disability groups have branded the decision an abuse of human rights and called for a law prohibiting the sterilisation of disabled …

At the beginning of my journalistic career I went to interview a chap called Magnus Malan.  It was in Pretoria, and early in the morning.  General Malan had been at the heart of South Africa’s apartheid government.  He’d b…