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Ban on ES Cell Patents Deeply Immoral

Procedures that involve human embryonic stem cells cannot be patented, the European Court of Justice recently declared. Apparently on the basis that patents “would be contrary to ethics and public policy”

“The decision from the European court of justice is a legal clarification for a court case brought by Greenpeace against a German scientist, Oliver Brüstle, who patented a way to turn stem cells into healthy brain cells. The environmental group argued that Brüstle’s work was “contrary to public order” because embryos were destroyed to gather the stem cells used.

“The judgment effectively supports the Greenpeace view and imposes a ban on patenting work that uses embryonic stem cells on the grounds that it represents an immoral “industrial” use of human embryos.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/oct/18/european-patents-embryonic-stem-cells)

This ruling is deeply immoral. In effect, it shuts down embryonic stem cell research by the back door. This ruling is only supported by a narrow, controversial position on the moral status of the human embryo. It imposes a conservative morality on all Europeans to the detriment of their future health.

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My son’s dyslexic, and I’m glad

By Charles Foster

My son is dyslexic, and I’m glad.
Most people think that I am deranged or callous. But I have two related reasons, both of which seem to me to be good.
The first is that his dyslexia is an inextricable part of him. I can’t say: ‘This is the pathological bit, which I resent’, as one might say of a tumour. Take away his dyslexia, and he wouldn’t be the same person, but able to read and write. He wouldn’t be him. That would be far too high a price for me to pay. And for him to pay? Well, there you run into Parfit’s non-identity problem.

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JOB: postdoc in law for the “Enhancing Responsibility” project- TU Delft and University of Oxford

**Deadline: 31 October 2011** Applicants are sought for a law postdoc position of 2.5 year duration to work on the international interdisciplinary research project “Enhancing Responsibility: the effects of cognitive enhancement on moral and legal responsibility” funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). A brief description of this project’s aims and inter-disciplinary approach… Read More »JOB: postdoc in law for the “Enhancing Responsibility” project- TU Delft and University of Oxford

Settling the Final Reckoning for Organ Donors

In the news this week, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics suggests that the NHS should test the idea of paying for the funerals of organ donors who have previously signed the organ donor register, in order to try to encourage more of the public to sign up. When I was asked to write about this proposal for the BBC’s web site, I found with surprise that I could think of no plausible ethical objections to it. This despite the fact that I’ve previously written here and elsewhere about the dangers of introducing a cash market for donor organs, and even about the dangers of other kinds of non-cash incentives. If the council’s proposal were found in trials to be both practically effective in increasing donations, and also affordable, then my clear view is  that it should be implemented in the UK.

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Robot Girl: A Survey

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In collaboration with the BBC’s Radio 4 show ‘The Philosopher’s Arms‘, we are running a series of short opinion surveys on the Practical Ethics blog as a way of promoting discussion on issues in practical ethics.

This week The Philosopher’s Arms discussed the case of the Robot Girl, in which we consider the ethical problems arising from the development of machines who act, think and feel like human beings. What is it to think? What is consciousness? If a robot made of silicon can be made to seem like one of us, would we say of it that it can think? If it walked like us, talked like us, screamed in apparent agony when it was hit, would we, should we say it was conscious?

The following survey explores some of these ethical themes.
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Ableist Language

Recently we have seen the stirrings in the philosophical blogosphere of a campaign, spearheaded by Shelley Tremain, to highlight and increase sensitivity to the use of ‘ableist’ language. Ableist language stands to disability in the way that sexist language stands to gender. Just as we now avoid certain kinds of language because it suggests –… Read More »Ableist Language

The unexpected turn: from the democratic Internet to the Panopticon

In the last ten years ICTs (information and communication technologies) have been increasingly used by militaries both to develop new weapons and to improve communication and propaganda campaigns. So much so that military often refers to ‘information’ as the fifth dimension of warfare in addition to land, sea, air and space. Given this scenario does… Read More »The unexpected turn: from the democratic Internet to the Panopticon

“Tourists are ambassadors in bathing suits” – On the ethics of choosing a holiday destination

Michael Allmaier, an Austrian journalist, wrote a controversial article in the German newspaper “Die Zeit” (http://www.zeit.de/2011/26/Reiseziele). It is devoted to the question, on why to pick an “ethical” holiday destination. He claims, that tourists should have a political attitude towards choosing a country to travel to. This inspired me to write this post on the ethics of selecting a holiday destination:

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A New Life Unexamined may be More Worth Living

Suppose that you’re part of an interracial, black African and white Caucasian, couple. You have a baby together, and immediately after the birth you phone around your friends and family to tell them the happy news. They all seem to have just one question, which you keep hearing over and over, immediately after you tell them that you have a new baby: “What skin tone does it have?”

As soon as you consider replying “light” or “dark” or “in-between”, you begin to wonder why the people you love are so strangely focussed on an unchosen and ultimately unimportant feature of your baby’s physical make-up. Do they think that your baby should be thought of or treated differently, merely on account of its skin colour? Instead of answering the question, you tell them this: “What does it matter? It’s not for us to impose our categories and expectations on the child. Let’s leave the child the freedom to form and choose its own identity as it grows old enough to do so.”

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Belgium: where rapists and muffin thieves are treated alike

Some recent prison sentences in Belgium, as reported in several articles in De Standaard, one of the major Flemish newspapers:

Repeated rape of 13-year old stepdaughter: 2,5 years
Repeated rape of 15-year old girl:2 years
Rape of 2 mentally disabled girls: 2,5 years
Repeated rape of 2 girls younger than 15, making one pregnant: 2 years
Violent rape of a student: 3 years
Rape of 3 boys by a bishop: o years (but he lost his job)
Stealing 2 bags of muffins from a supermarket’s rubbish container: 6 months
(Prisoners are often released after doing half of their sentence)

Is it just me, or is something not right here?