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How to deal with double-edged technology

By Brian D. Earp

 World’s smallest drone? Or how to deal with double-edged technology 

BBC News reports that Harvard scientists have developed the world’s smallest flying robot. It’s about the size of a penny, and it moves faster than a human hand can swat. Of course, the inventors of this “diminutive flying vehicle” immediately lauded its potential for bringing good to the world:

1. “We could envision these robots being used for search-and-rescue operations to search for human survivors under collapsed buildings or [in] other hazardous environments.”

2. “They [could] be used for environmental monitoring, to be dispersed into a habitat to sense trace chemicals or other factors.”

3. They might even behave like many real insects and assist with the pollination of crops, “to function as the now-struggling honeybee populations do in supporting agriculture around the world.”

These all seem like pretty commendable uses of a new technology. Yet one can think of some “bad” uses too. The “search and rescue” version of this robot (for example) would presumably be fitted with a camera; and the prospect of a swarm of tiny, remote-controlled flying video recorders raises some obvious questions about spying and privacy. It also prompts one to wonder who will have access to these spy bugs (the U.S. Air Force has long been interested in building miniature espionage drones), and whether there will be effective regulatory strategies capable of tilting future usage more toward the search-and-rescue side of things, and away from the peep-and-record side.

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Postponed: Wellcome Lectures in Neuroethics 2013

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With apologies to speakers and attendees, the above lecture has had to be postponed to next term. A new announcement will be posted shortly with the new details. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience.    POSTPONED: Wellcome Lecture in Neuroethics 2013 Venue: Lecture Theatre, Philosophy Faculty, Radcliffe Humanities Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford,… Read More »Postponed: Wellcome Lectures in Neuroethics 2013

Journal of Medical Ethics special issue on the ethics of stem cell-derived gametes

Recent scientific developments suggest that it may become possible to create viable human gametes from human stem cells. It has been suggested that this will lead to the development of a range of new fertility treatments as well as new strands of research. More speculatively, some have argued that it may

  • Allow the radical enhancement of human reproductive capabilities, for example, by allowing same-sex couples or post-menopausal women to have genetically-related offspring
  • Provide new means of creating ‘designer babies’, for example, by easing constraints on the number of embryos that can be produced in IVF.

In a feature article forthcoming in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Robert Sparrow discusses the possibility that stem cell technologies might be used to facilitate what he calls ‘in vitro eugenics’; the deliberate and selective breeding of multiple generations of human embryos in vitro. The Editors of the Journal of Medical Ethics now invite submissions for a special issue addressing the ethical questions raised by Sparrow’s paper and by stem cell-derived gametes more generally.

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Paracetamol Can Soften Our Moral Reactions

Our moral reactions are easily influenced by a variety of factors. One of them is anxiety. When people are confronted with disturbing experiences like mortality salience (i.e., being made aware of their own eventual death), they tend to affirm their moral beliefs. As a result, they feel inclined to punish moral transgression more harshly than they would without feeling fundamentally threatened. For example, in a now classical study people who objected to prostitution were asked to suggest a penalty for a woman arrested for prostitution. Participants who were led to reflect on their own mortality beforehand proposed a far higher bail than participants who thought about a less anxiety inducing topic. Such belief affirmation effects can also be evoked by psychologically disturbing experiences less severe than mortality salience. Hence, anxiety aroused by different situations can make our moral reactions more pronounced.

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Politics as tribal allegiance

How strongly wedded are people to their political preferences? The received wisdom amongst political journalists and pollsters is that most people can be counted on to vote for one major party or another, and only a relatively small percentage of people swing elections. It is these people – swinging voters, as they called in Australia – who decide elections. At very least, as an election approaches most have made up their mind and can’t be persuaded to shift.

Suppose most people are committed to a major party, at least in the days preceding an election.  Is this a matter of policy agreement or of something more like identification or tribal allegiance? A recent paper casts some light on this question, and along the way suggests that people might be more open to shifting allegiances than we might have thought, at least if approached in the right way.Read More »Politics as tribal allegiance

Why slaughterhouses should welcome CCTV

by Rebecca Roache

Covertly filming shocking animal abuse in the meat industry (and other industries involving animals) is a common tactic of animal welfare charities such as the Humane Society, Mercy for Animals, Animal Aid, and PETA. The footage is generally obtained by workers for the charities who gain employment at slaughterhouses, farms, laboratories and the like; and it has been instrumental in prosecuting abusers and applying pressure on meat producers to improve welfare standards, as the New York Times reported at the weekend.

The same article also reports a disturbing response to this practice by several US states:

They proposed or enacted bills that would make it illegal to covertly videotape livestock farms, or apply for a job at one without disclosing ties to animal rights groups. They have also drafted measures to require such videos to be given to the authorities almost immediately, which activists say would thwart any meaningful undercover investigation of large factory farms.

Those who flout this so-called ‘ag-gag’  legislation may, among other things, be placed on a ‘terrorist registry’.

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The Cultural Cost of Placebo

A recent poll says that nearly all General Practitioners in the UK have given placebos to at least one of their patients. The story can be seen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21834440   Everyone loves placebos. If you are a scientist, placebo shows an incredible feat of the human body, and interesting interactions between our psychology and the biology… Read More »The Cultural Cost of Placebo

Julian Savulescu and Robert Sparrow debate the ethics of designer babies

Last year, Julian Savulescu of the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics here at Oxford debated Robert Sparrow of Monash University on the issue of using techniques like embryo selection to ensure one’s children have the best life possible.  Savulescu has notably defended not only the permissibility but the obligation to select for the best children, while Sparrow has been more critical of enhancement via embryo selection.  The transcript of their debate is now available, and their exchange helps clarify a key source of disagreement between proponents and critics of embryo selection – whether parents should be maximizing their children’s well-being, or simply giving them a good enough life.  At its core, the debate is less about the intricacies of new technologies like preimplantation genetic diagnostics (PGD) and more about the ethics of parenting.  I’ll summarize some of the key points of the debate below, but I encourage readers to have a look at the transcript to get a sense for how the dialectic plays out as well as how each interlocutor deals with a wide array of objections.Read More »Julian Savulescu and Robert Sparrow debate the ethics of designer babies