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Skipping intuitively over the is-ought gap

By Charles Foster

I spent a lot of the weekend at a very good conference entitled Moral Evil in Practical Ethics.
There was, I think, a complete or almost complete consensus about many things. Here are two: (1) Evil exists, and is of a different quality from merely sub-optimal moral behaviour. (2) To recognise evil implied a duty to do something to combat it. Everyone in the room seemed to see (2) as a corollary of (1).
This second proposition is a classic ‘ought’ claim. But how did we get there? The audience included many distinguished philosophers. Were we all plunging naively but disastrously into the is-ought gap? Was the conclusion sloppily reached, and untenable?Read More »Skipping intuitively over the is-ought gap

‘There is no right not to be offended’: true or false?

‘There is no right not to be offended!’: It’s a popular  slogan.  At least, it must be if Google is anything to go by. I typed the phrase ‘no right not to be offended’ into ‘advanced search’ and came up with ‘about’ 1,780,000 sites.  The slogan is especially favoured by those who, rightly or wrongly,  see themselves as taking a stand for freedom of speech and expression against its enemies, and that includes  Nicholas Hytner, Philip Pullman, John Cleese, Shami Chakrabarti, Rowan Atkinson, Peter Tatchell, Ronald Dworkin, Ricky Gervais, and the late Christopher Hitchens. That’s a fairly broad range of intellectually capable individuals , and I am sure the list could be extended considerably. (I can’t say that I have checked out every single one of the websites in question.)

 

Even so, there is a major problem with the claim, namely that it is completely false. At least, that is how it looks to me. Moreover, it doesn’t take much of an argument to demonstrate the point. Thus: Suppose that I were approach a randomly selected passer-by and say – e.g. – ‘Oy pigface! You smell like a rat’s backside’. That would be offensive, would it not?  Alternatively, suppose that I were to deliberately offend some person by publicly insulting them on the web. It seems to me that any person whose moral sensitivities are at all normal could only deplore such behaviour. If you agree, then you are thereby recognising  that people have a right not to be treated in such ways, from which it follows, tout court, that there is a right not to be offended, – at least in cases resembling those I have just described.Read More »‘There is no right not to be offended’: true or false?

NeuroLaw: Do we have a responsibility to use neuroscience to inform law?

The airwaves buzzed last week on BBC radio about biological predispositions towards violence, brain-based lie detection systems, tumors associated with pedophilia, and psychopaths.  The BBC looked to the Neuroethics Centre’s own Walter Sinott-Armstrong for his perspective on neuroscience in law in light of the release of the Royal Society’s recent report on the topic (on which he acted as a reviewer). The short and sweet BBC podcast can be found here (the segment on NeuroLaw begins at 12:52). While much of the debate so far has focused on the dangers neuroscience might bring to the legal system and therefore on caution in the adoption of neuroscience in legal settings, Walter Sinott-Armstrong pointed out that the potential to help is also huge. Neuroscience investigating the brain networks active in chronic pain could help build evidence that someone is suffering chronic pain. It might compliment actuarial risk estimates to help better estimate future dangerousness when offenders are up for parole (an area where expert opinion by psychologists is notorious wrong 2 out of 3 times). And it may help identify cases of shaken-baby syndrome.  And with this potential, it raises the intriguing question: do we have a responsibility to use neuroscience in law?

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Conjoined Twins: Who Should Live and Who Should Die?

A 23 – year old has given birth to conjoined twins in Brazil. The two boys have separate brains and spinal columns, but share other major organs, including heart, lungs and liver.
 
The twins, who have dicephalic parapagus, an extremely rare disorder, are in a stable condition, and there are no current plans to surgically separate them. Doctor Neila Dahas of Santa Casa de Misericordia Hospital, where they are currently under care and observation, said, “it is impossible to take a decision with relation to surgery, not only because of physical reasons, but ethical ones as well.”

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A Slave to Christmas Pudding?

For many of us, there is probably no better time of year to think about weakness of will. Some will be mentally preparing themselves to resist the temptations of the Christmas table, while others, already knowing that in their case such preparations are pointless, will be assuring themselves that a new year’s resolution to revisit… Read More »A Slave to Christmas Pudding?

Water, food or energy: we won’t lack them

The world is full of problems. Pollution is a problem. The destruction of the coral reefs, the eradication of the rain forests, the mass extinction of animal species are problems, and tragedies. Loss of biodiversity is a problem. Global warming is a problem. Poverty and the unequal distribution of resources are major problems.

But lack of basic resources isn’t a problem. We’ll have enough food, water and energy for the whole human race for the forseable future, at reasonable costs. Take a worse-case scenario for all three areas, and let’s look at the figures.

Read More »Water, food or energy: we won’t lack them