-
Video Series: Should We Pay People to Quit Smoking or Lose Weight?
Should we pay people to quit smoking or lose weight? Would paying them amount to coercion? Is there a risk that if we start paying for healthy behaviour, its value will be corrupted? Is paying unhealthy people unfair to those who already lead healthy life styles? In this video interview (with Katrien Devolder), Dr Rebecca
-
Womb Transplants and Child-Centred Surrogacy
Julian Savulescu Womb transplants are again in the news as Richard Paulson, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), said there was no reason to believe that the treatment could not work for transgender women at recent conference in Texas. The ethical issues of performing a womb transplant for a transgender women
-
Cross Post: Friends With Unexpected Benefits – Working With Buddies Can Improve Performance
Written by Nadira Faber This post was originally published on The Conversation We routinely work together with other people. Often, we try to achieve shared goals in groups, whether as a team of firefighters or in a scientific collaboration. When working together, many people – naturally – would prefer doing so with others who are
-
Vaccine Refusal Is Like Tax Evasion
Written by Alberto Giubilini: Oxford Martin School and Wellcome Centre for Ethics and the Humanities, University of Oxford Vaccination has received a lot of media attention over the past few months following recent measles outbreaks and the introduction of rigid vaccination policies in some countries. Amid this discussion, a rather strange story hit the
-
Cross Post: Machine Learning and Medical Education: Impending Conflicts in Robotic Surgery
Guest Post by Nathan Hodson * Please note that this article is being cross-posted from the Journal of Medical Ethics Blog Research in robotics promises to revolutionize surgery. The Da Vinci system has already brought the first fruits of the revolution into the operating theater through remote controlled laparoscopic (or “keyhole”) surgery. New developments are going
-
MSt in Practical Ethics
The MSt in Practical Ethics is now open for applications for 2025. The MSt offers high-quality training in practical ethics, drawing on the internationally recognised expertise of Oxford’s Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, the Ethox Centre and the Faculty of Philosophy. Application Deadlines: Wednesday 29th January 2025, 12:00 noon UK time, (Latest deadline for most Oxford scholarships) *Applications may remain
-
Harvey Weinstein and the Ring of Gyges
Written by Roger Crisp At the start of book II of what is perhaps the most famous work in western philosophy, Plato’s Republic, one of the characters in the dialogue, Glaucon, tells Socrates the story of a Lydian shepherd, Gyges. Gyges, having found a ring which made him invisible, used its powers to enter the royal
-
Blade Runner 2049, Parfit and Identity
Julian Savulescu Contains spoilers for both Blade Runner films. This is a longer version of a shorter piece without spoilers, Blade Runner 2049: Identity, Humanity, and Discrimination, in Pursuit Blade Runner 2049, like the original, is about identity, humanity and discrimination. Identity and Humanity In both films, bioengineered humans are known as replicants. Blade
-
A Fundamental Problem with Moral Enhancement
by Joao Fabiano Moral philosophers often prefer to conceive thought experiments, dilemmas and problem cases of single individuals who make one-shot decisions with well-defined short-term consequences. Morality is complex enough that such simplifications seem justifiable or even necessary for philosophical reflection. If we are still far from consensus on which is the best moral theory