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The Morality of Carbon Border Taxes
By Doug McConnell The European Parliament has adopted a tool called the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) which will apply the EU’s carbon pricing to imported goods. This means that imports from countries with lesser or non-existent carbon pricing will effectively face a tariff. Various governments including Australia and China have objected strongly to the
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The double ethical mistake of vaccinating children against COVID-19
Alberto Giubilini Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics University of Oxford Against the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI)’s advice that did not recommend COVID-19 vaccination for children, the four Chief Medical Officers in the UK have just recommended that all children aged 12-15 should be vaccinated with the mRNA Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
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Philosophical Fiddling While the World Burns
By Charles Foster An unprecedented editorial has just appeared in many health journals across the world. It relates to climate change. The authors say that they are ‘united in recognising that only fundamental and equitable changes to societies will reverse our current trajectory.’ Climate change, they agree, is the major threat to public health. Here
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We Should Vaccinate Children in High-income Countries Against COVID-19, Too
Written by Lisa Forsberg, Anthony Skelton, Isra Black In early September, children in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are set to return to school. (Scottish schoolchildren have already returned.) Most will not be vaccinated, and there will be few, if any, measures in place protecting them from COVID-19 infection. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and
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Judgebot.exe Has Encountered a Problem and Can No Longer Serve
Written by Stephen Rainey Artificial intelligence (AI) is anticipated by many as having the potential to revolutionise traditional fields of knowledge and expertise. In some quarters, this has led to fears about the future of work, with machines muscling in on otherwise human work. Elon Musk is rattling cages again in this context with his
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In Praise of ‘Casual’ Friendship
By Ben Davies Academics, especially early in our careers, move around quite a lot. Having done my PhD in London, I have also lived or worked in Leeds, Liverpool, Oxford, and rural Pennsylvania; I am far from the most well-travelled academic I know. In many cases, when we arrive at a new job, we know
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Would Extinction be so Bad?
by Roger Crisp In recent decades, it has often been said that we are living at the ‘hinge of history’, an unprecedented period during which some catastrophic event such as rapid climate change, a nuclear war, or the release of a synthesized pathogen may bring an end to human and perhaps all sentient life on
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Healthcare, Responsibility, and Golden Opportunities
Written by Gabriel De Marco This blog post is based on a co-authored paper (w. Tom Douglas and Julian Savulescu) recently published in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. When it comes to determining how healthcare resources should be allocated, there are many factors that could—and perhaps should—be taken into account. One such factor is
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The end of the COVID-19 pandemic
Alberto Giubilini, Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and WEH, University of Oxford Erica Charters, Faculty of History and WEH, University of Oxford A discussion on the end of the COVID-19 pandemic is overdue. We keep hearing that ‘we are in the middle of a pandemic’. However, it is not clear what
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Homelessness as a moral cost to the housed
Written by Neil Levy Homelessness is, of course, above all a cost to the homeless: it’s a dangerous, difficult, insecure way to live. There are therefore strong moral reasons to address it, for the sake of the homeless. There are also (non-moral) reasons to address it, centring on its costs to everyone, homeless and housed