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The Ethics of Regulation

The Ethics of Regulation

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The New York Times just ran a fairly lengthy article that reported the use of psilocybin, a hallucinogenic drug, in a controlled experiment aimed at reducing anxiety and depression in cancer patients. (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/health/hallucinogenic-mushrooms-psilocybin-cancer-anxiety-depression.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news)

A few days earlier the New York Times ran a story on trials using MDMA (i.e., ecstasy) to treat post traumatic stress disorder. (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/us/ptsd-mdma-ecstasy.html)

Why are these stories news?Read More »The Ethics of Regulation

Cross Post: Why you might want to think twice about surrendering online privacy for the sake of convenience

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Written by Carissa Veliz

DPhil Candidate in Philosophy, Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford

This article was originally published in The Conversation

Just a click away once you tick this too-long-to-read privacy agreement. Shutterstock

It is inconvenient to guard one’s privacy, and the better one protects it, the more inconvenience one must endure. Enjoying privacy, at a minimum, demands installing software to block tracking online, using long and different passwords for online services, remembering to turn off the WiFi and Bluetooth signals on your mobile phone when leaving the house, using cash, and so on.Read More »Cross Post: Why you might want to think twice about surrendering online privacy for the sake of convenience

Cross Post: Liberal or conservative? Most of our beliefs shift around

Written by Prof Neil Levy,

Senior Research Fellow, Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford

This article was originally published on The Conversation

What? Okay, that sounds good. Justin Lane/EPA

One common reaction to the election of Donald Trump (and perhaps to a lesser extent, the Brexit vote) among liberals like me is an expression of dismay that some of our fellow citizens are more racist and more sexist than we had dreamed. It seems many were prepared, if not to support openly racist comments and sexist actions, then at least to overlook them. It looks as though battles we thought we had won, having to do with a recognition of a basic kind of equality, need to be fought all over again. Many have concluded that they were never won at all; people were just waiting for a favourable climate to express the racism and sexism they held hidden.Read More »Cross Post: Liberal or conservative? Most of our beliefs shift around

Cross Post: Solomon’s frozen judgement

Written by Anders Sandberg

This post was originally published on Andert II

A girl dying of cancer wanted to use cryonic preservation to have a chance at being revived in the future. While supported by her mother the father disagreed; in a recent high court ruling, the judge found that she could be cryopreserved.

As the judge noted, the verdict was not a statement on the validity of cryonics itself, but about how to make decisions about prospective orders. In many ways the case would presumably have gone the same way if there had been a disagreement about whether the daughter could have catholic last rites. However, cryonics makes things fresh and exciting (I have been in the media all day thanks to this).

What is the ethics of parents disagreeing about the cryosuspension of their child?Read More »Cross Post: Solomon’s frozen judgement

Functional neo-Aristotelianism as a way to preserve moral agency: A response to Dr William Casebeer’s lecture: The Neuroscience of Moral Agency

Written by Dr Anibal Monasterio Astobiza

Audio File of Dr Casebeer’s talk is available here: http://media.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/uehiro/HT17_Casebeer.mp3

 

Dr. William Casebeer has an unusual, but nonetheless very interesting, professional career. He retired from active duty as a US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and intelligence analyst. He obtained his PhD in Cognitive Science and Philosophy from University of California, San Diego, under the guidance and inspiration of Patricia and Paul Churchland, served as a Program Manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency from 2010-14 in the Defense Sciences Office and helped to established DARPA’s neuroethics program. Nowadays, Dr. William Casebeer is a Research Area Manager in Human Systems and Autonomy for Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Laboratories. As I said, not the conventional path for a well known researcher with very prominent contributions in neuroethics and moral evolution. His book Natural Ethical Facts: Evolution, Connectionism, and Moral Cognition (MIT Press) presented a functional and neo-Aristotelian account of morality with a clever argument trying to solve G. E. Moore´s naturalistic fallacy: according to Casebeer it is possible to reduce what is good, or in other words morality, to natural facts.

Read More »Functional neo-Aristotelianism as a way to preserve moral agency: A response to Dr William Casebeer’s lecture: The Neuroscience of Moral Agency

Cross Post: Our political beliefs predict how we feel about climate change

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Written by Prof Neil Levy

Originally published on The Conversation

The man who called global warming a fabrication invented by the Chinese to make US manufacturing less competitive is now president-elect of the US. His followers expect him to withdraw the US from the Paris climate change agreement and eliminate the environmental regulations introduced by his predecessor.

But recently, Donald Trump has shown a few signs that he might be open to being convinced that climate change is a real problem requiring action. In discussion with journalists at the New York Times, he expressed the view that there is “some connectivity” between human activity and climate change, adding that he’s keeping an open mind about it.Read More »Cross Post: Our political beliefs predict how we feel about climate change

Good Enough Lives – Procreative Satisficence

By Dominic Wilkinson @Neonatalethics

 

Should parents undertake prenatal testing? Is there a moral reason to prevent disability in your future child through embryo selection?

In a special Moral Philosophy Seminar yesterday evening, Professor Tom Shakespeare, from the University of East Anglia, gave a nuanced and multi-faceted argument against the arguments advanced by Julian Savulescu and Jeff McMahan in favour of embryo selection. In particular he attacked Julian’s Principle of Procreative Beneficence (PB)

Procreative Beneficence (shortened version): when considering different possible children, based on relevant available information, couples should select the child who is expected to have the best life*

Read More »Good Enough Lives – Procreative Satisficence

Four myths about IVF in older women

Dominic Wilkinson, @Neonatalethics

Reports that a 62-year-old Spanish woman has given birth after IVF treatment have led many to question whether there should be age limits with such treatment. Lina Alvarez, a doctor in north-west Spain, isn’t the oldest person to have had success with IVF. Earlier this year, in India, Daljinder Kaur is said to have given birth at the age of 72, prompting calls from the Indian Medical Council for a ban on fertility treatment in women over the age of 50.

In many countries where there is funding assistance for IVF there is a limit to obtaining treatment over a certain age. In Britain, for example, the bar is set at age 42. But Alvarez received private treatment. So why care about her age? And what business is it of the rest of us whether she has access to IVF?

There are several arguments that typically surface in debates about age and fertility treatment – and they are all deeply flawed.Read More »Four myths about IVF in older women

The bright side of Brexit

Let’s suppose, entirely hypothetically and for the sake of argument, that Brexit is a disaster for the UK. Let’s suppose that sterling crashes; that foreign travel is punishingly expensive and that, if you can afford to go abroad, you’re a laughing stock. Let’s suppose that the Treasury’s estimates of billions of pounds of losses each year are reasonably accurate; that unemployment rises; that credit ratings plummet. Let’s suppose Brexit creates a corrosive tide of racism; that things that should never be said, and can never be unsaid, are shouted at high volume. Let’s suppose that there’s a torrential brain drain; that UK universities fall down the international league tables; that the innovative treatments prescribed (to private patients only, unfortunately – no money left for the NHS) by the UK’s (predominantly white) doctors are all devised in New York, Paris and Rome rather than London and Leeds. Let’s suppose that the environment, unprotected by EU legislation, is trashed, and that Scotland leaves the UK.  Let’s suppose, too, that nervousness about all this creates an increasingly authoritarian style of government .

If all that happens, it’ll be great. At least if you’re a consistent utilitarian. The horror of the UK’s experience will strengthen the EU and prevent other countries from thinking that they should leave the Union – which would have similarly disastrous results for them and, if the EU itself dissolves, tectonic consequences for the stability of the world.Read More »The bright side of Brexit

Announcement: 3rd Annual Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics

Graduate and undergraduate students currently enrolled at the University of Oxford in any subject are invited to enter the Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics by submitting an essay of up to 2000 words on any topic relevant to practical ethics.  Eligibility includes visiting students who are registered as recognized students, and paying fees, but does not include informal visitors.  Two undergraduate papers and two graduate papers will be shortlisted from those submitted to go forward to a public presentation and discussion, where the winner of each category will be selected.

The winner from each category will receive £300, and the runner up £100. All four finalist essays will be considered for publication in the Journal of Practical Ethics.

To enter, please submit your written papers by the end of 23rd January 2017 to rocci.wilkinson@philosophy.ox.ac.uk. Finalists will be notified in early to mid February. The public presentation will take place in 7th Week, Hilary term 2017. Read More »Announcement: 3rd Annual Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics