Who You Really Are And Why It Matters
By Charles Foster [This is a review of The Flip: Who you really are, and why it matters, by Jeffrey J. Kripal. Penguin, 2020] A few years ago I dislocated my shoulder. I went off to hospital, and breathed nitrous oxide while they tried to…
Read MoreCurrent Lockdown Is Ageist (Against The Young)
Written by Alberto Giubilini Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities University of Oxford Former UK supreme court justice and historian Lord Jonathan Sumption recently made the followin…
Read MoreAre Immunity Passports a Human Rights Issue?
Written by Julian Savulescu A shorter version of this post appears in The Telegraph Imagine you are about to board a plane (remember that…) Authorities have reason to believe you are carrying a loaded gun. They are entitled to detain you. B…
Read MoreEthical Considerations For The Second Phase Of Vaccine Prioritisation
By Jonathan Pugh and Julian Savulescu As the first phase of vaccine distribution continues to proceed, a heated debate has begun about the second phase of vaccine prioritisation, particularly with respect to the question of whether c…
Read MoreVaccines and Ventilators: Need, Outcome or a Right to a Fair Go?
Written by Julian Savulescu and Jonathan Pugh The current UK approach to allocating limited life-saving resources is on the basis of need. Guidance issued by The General Medical Council states that all doctors must “Make sure that decisions…
Read MorePandemic Ethics: Saving Lives and Replaceability
Written by Roger Crisp Imagine two worlds quite different from our own. In Non-intervention, if a person becomes ill with some life-threatening condition, though their pain may be alleviated, no attempt is made to save their lives. In Maxim…
Read MoreGuest Post: Why Philosophers Should Write More Accessibly: Towards A New Kind of Epistemic (In)justice
Written by University of Oxford student Brian Wong Philosophy should, to some extent, be a publicly oriented activity: we hope to make sense of first-order questions concerning how we ought to live, what existence is, what we know, and also…
Read MoreLessons for Philosophers and Scientists from Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown
By Charles Foster Arthur Conan Doyle’s estate has issued proceedings, complaining that Enola Holmes, a recently released film about Sherlock Holmes’ sister, portrays the great detective as too emotional. Sherlock Holmes was fam…
Read MorePRESS RELEASE: Racial Justice Requires Ending Drug War, Say Leading Bioethicists
PRESS RELEASE: Free all non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offences, say experts Non-violent offenders serving time for drug use or possession should be freed immediately and their convictions erased, according to research published…
Read MoreThis Machine Kills Viruses
Written by Stephen Rainey If we had a machine that could eradicate coronavirus at the press of a button, there would likely be a queue to do the honours. Rather than having such a device, we have a science-policy interface, and a general co…
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