By Guy Kahane These days it seems as if every couple of weeks or so we get reports about newly discovered planets that are ever more similar to Earth. The most recent discovery, planet Proxima b, is the closest planet found so far; Scientif…

Kuwait is planning to build a complete DNA database of not just citizens but all other residents and temporary visitors. The motivation is claimed to be antiterrorism (the universal motivation!) and fighting crime. Many are outraged, from l…

by Professor Dominic Wilkinson, @Neonatalethics Professor of Medical Ethics, Consultant Neonatologist   Our society has good reason to provide special treatment to people with severe brain injuries and their families. But our current “…

Doctors have values. These are sometimes described as their conscience. Those values can conflict with what has evolved to be medical practice. Where that practice is consistent with principles, concept and norms of medical ethics, their va…

The author of the webcomic Left Over Soup proposed a sexual equivalent (or parody?) of Searle’s Chinese Room argument, posing some interesting questions about what it means to have sex, consent and relationships if there is technologi…

Smartphones are like spies in our pocket; we should cover the camera and microphone of our laptops; it is difficult to opt out of services like Facebook that track us on the internet; IMSI-catchers can ‘vacuum’ data from our smartphones; da…

Written by Angeliki Kerasidou & Ruth Horn, The Ethox Centre, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford   Recently, a number of media reports and personal testimonies have drawn attention to the intense physical…

This article was originally published in The Conversation Written by Julian Savulescu Sir Louis Matheson Distinguishing Visiting Professor at Monash University, Uehiro Professor of Practical Ethics, University of Oxford Connor Rochford Medi…

By Charles Foster English law has traditionally, for most purposes, regarded animals as mere chattels. There is now animal welfare legislation which seeks to prevent or limit animal suffering, but provided that legislation is complied with,…