Mummification and Moral Blindness
By Charles Foster
Image: The Great Sphinx and Pyramids of Gizeh (Giza), 17 July 1839, by David Roberts: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Words are powerful. When a word is outlawed, the prohibition tends to chill or shut down debate in a wide area surrounding that word. That tendency is much discussed, but it’s not my concern here. It’s one thing declaring a no-go area: it’s another when the mere use or non-use of a word is so potent that it makes it impossible to see something that’s utterly obvious.
There has recently been an excellent and troubling example. Some museums have started to change their labels. They consider that the use of the word ‘mummy’ demeans the dead, and are using instead the adjective ‘mummified’: thus, for instance ‘mummified person’ or ‘mummified remains’. Fair enough. I approve. Too little consideration is given to the enormous constituency of the dead. But using an adjective instead of a noun doesn’t do much moral work.
Consider this: The Great North Museum: Hancock, has on display a mummified Egyptian woman, known as Irtyru. Visitor research showed that many visitors did not recognise her as a real person. The museum was rightly troubled by that. It sought to display her ‘more sensitively’. It’s not clear from the report what that means, but it seems to include a change in the labelling. She will no longer be a ‘mummy’, but will be ‘mummified’. She is a ‘mummified person‘: She’ll still remain in a case, gawped at by mawkish visitors. Continue reading
We Need To Have A Conversation About “We Need To Have A Conversation”
By Ben Davies
When new technologies emerge, ethical questions inevitably arise about their use. Scientists with relevant expertise will be invited to speak on radio, on television, and in newspapers (sometimes ethicists are asked, too, but this is rarer). In many such cases, a particular phrase gets used when the interview turns to potential ethical issues:
“We need to have a conversation”.
It would make for an interesting qualitative research paper to analyse media interviews with scientists to see how often this phrase comes up (perhaps it seems more prevalent to me than it really is because I’ve become particularly attuned to it). Having not done that research, my suggestion that this is a common response should be taken with a pinch of salt. But it’s undeniably a phrase that gets trotted out. And I want to suggest that there are at least two issues with it. Neither of these issues is necessarily tied together with using this phrase—it’s entirely possible to use it without raising either—but they arise frequently.
In keeping with the stereotype of an Anglophone philosopher, I’m going to pick up on a couple of key terms in a phrase and ask what they mean. First, though, I’ll offer a brief, qualified defence of this phrase. My aim in raising these issues isn’t to attack scientists who use it, but rather to ask that a bit more thought is put into what is, at heart, a reasonable response to ethical complexity.
Post-Normal Challenges of Covid
Written by Stephen Rainey
How to manage the inevitable disruptions to life brought about by the emergence of a viral pandemic – a question that for many seemed remote has now had us all preoccupied for well over a year. With our just-published article, entitled The Post-Normal Challenges of COVID-19: Constructing Effective and Legitimate Responses, in the Journal Science and Public Policy, Maru Mormina, Sapfo Lignou, Joseph Nguyen, Paula Larsson and I set out to investigate some of the perplexing difficulties especially relating to effectiveness and legitimacy. We examine these in the light of pandemics as wicked problems and lay out how ‘post-normal science’ can contribute to a sound pandemic response.
In any pandemic response, the measures undertaken by authorities must effective in the sense of actually addressing the viral threats. A strategy that didn’t slow the rate of viral spread, for instance, wouldn’t work and for that reason would be due criticism. The concept of legitimacy is one perhaps less easy to cash out. In any pandemic response, the measures undertaken by authorities must be legitimate in the sense of fairly and justifiably constraining liberties enjoyed prior to the viral outbreak. A strategy that placed undue or disproportionate burdens on societal sub-groups, for instance, wouldn’t be legitimate and for that reason would be due criticism. For effectiveness in a medical crisis particularly, science is an essential element of any response. Continue reading
Politics, Ethics, and Shutting Down in the Face of Covid-19
Written by Stephen Rainey
Recently, I wrote about some possible limits of democratic politics in the context of climate change science. The idea was that politics could owe debts to citizens that might prompt suspension of established, and in themselves desirable, norms under certain circumstances. Coronavirus presents more such circumstances, so it’s worth revisiting those earlier thoughts, and looking at how the responses stack up in light of them.
Viruses are not really organisms in the sense of living things with which we are broadly familiar. Whereas plants are practically self-sufficient, in generating their own energy, and most other life requires the consumption of plant or plant derived materials to thrive, viruses are utterly dependent upon colonising the mechanisms of cells in order to survive.
Covid-19 is a string of ribonucleic acid (RNA), with a fatty coating, and a spiky crown of proteins. Like any other virus, covid-19 requires the cells of other living things in order to generate the proteins it needs in order to multiply. This involves hijacking the mechanisms of the host cells. Covid-19 is what’s called a messenger RNA virus, meaning it fools a host cell into creating not the proteins required by the host organism, but those of the virus.
We all know now that among the host cells amenable to Covid-19’s survival are human cells. As a result of this, thousands have died, thousands more have fallen ill and will fall ill, and we have witnessed a pan-national suspension of socio-political rights and freedoms. It seems remarkable that the protein generating requirements of a string of RNA could so directly impact upon established socio-political norms. But more to the point, it is right that such impacts are evoked by this virus. A response to such emergencies that falls short will be ineffective, and unethical. Continue reading
Festival of Arguments
by Liz Sanders
We have reluctantly taken the decision to postpone this year’s Festival of Arguments. We apologise for the inconvenience and hope you will understand our decision in light of the uncertainty arising from recent global events. We hope to be able to record one or two of the events without an audience, and we will make these available as soon as possible. We also hope to rearrange some of these events in the future, and details will be posted on the website in due course.
Join the Oxford Uehiro Centre and colleagues from across Oxford in exploring how to think critically about life in this first public festival of practical ethics. The Festival of Arguments is free to take part in, and focusses on exploring today’s most pressing ethical dilemmas. Join us for talks, debates, walks, cafés, book launches, readings and more!
The full event listing and booking system is available here.
We look forward to seeing you at our events! If you have any questions or comments in the meantime please contact liz.sanders@philosophy.ox.ac.uk
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