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Ethics

Book review: ‘Moral Tribes’ by Joshua Greene

The dictator Joseph Stalin reputedly once said that “The death of one person is a tragedy; the death of one million is a statistic.” Behind this chilling remark lies an important insight into human moral psychology. Our moral intuitions are myopic. For instance, we are repelled by the idea of causing others direct physical harm, while it is psychologically much easier to inflict the same, or greater, amounts of harm in non-direct ways. (Think of controlling a drone, as opposed to stabbing someone at close range.)Read More »Book review: ‘Moral Tribes’ by Joshua Greene

The cold equations of ethics

Cory Doctorow has written a thoughtful critique of two science fiction stories and how they might promote short-sightedness and morally bad behaviour. If one thinks science fiction is good for teaching us to think about the future (or literature in general about the world), is there a moral responsibility of authors to avoid moral hazard? And if that is true, what about ethicists coming up with thought experiments?Read More »The cold equations of ethics

Another Surprising Side-Effect of Paracetamol: Causing ADHD?

Photo: Colourbox

Taking the popular over-the-counter pain and fever medication paracetamol during pregnancy might affect the unborn child more than we assumed – and hoped for. Recently, research began to link pre-natal exposure of paracetamol (also known as acetominophen) to asthma and poor motor and communication skills in small children. Now, a new study published yesterday suggests that taking paracetamol during pregnancy comes with an increased risk for the baby of developing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) later.

The authors of this study investigated 64,322 Danish children (born 1996-2002) and their mothers. The women were asked whether they have taken paracetamol in computer-assisted telephone interviews three times during their pregnancy and shortly after. To asses ADHD in children, the researchers used different ways: they asked the mothers of 7-year-olds about their child’s behaviour using a standardised ADHD questionnaire. Moreover, they used Danish medical registries to gain information about diagnoses of hyperkinetic disorder, which resembles a severe form of ADHD, and descriptions of ADHD medication to the children.

Read More »Another Surprising Side-Effect of Paracetamol: Causing ADHD?

How the Danziger Story Advances the Abortion Debate in America: Actual Futures, Moral Status, and Common Ground

It has become commonplace in recent years to note that the ‘abortion debate’ in America has become entrenched. Indeed, there seem to be few issues in contemporary politics that elicit less common ground than the abortion debate finds in its stalwartly pro-choice and pro-life opponents. It is just as common, if not more so, these days to speak of the ‘attack on Roe v. Wade’ or ‘the attack on women’s rights,’ particularly in light of recent findings that more abortion restrictions were enacted between 2011 and 2013 in the U.S. than in the entire previous decade. Now more than ever, especially for the pro-choice movement, it is necessary to conceptualize novel approaches to the questions of the beginning, end, and quality of life that sit at the heart of the abortion debate. Here I examine a recent case and how it has the potential to advance this debate.Read More »How the Danziger Story Advances the Abortion Debate in America: Actual Futures, Moral Status, and Common Ground

Female genital mutilation (FGM) and male circumcision: should there be a separate ethical discourse?

Female genital mutilation (FGM) and male circumcision: should there be a separate ethical discourse? This month, the Guardian launched a campaign in conjunction with Change.org (the petition is here) to end “female genital mutilation” (FGM) in the UK—see Dominic Wilkinson’s recent analysis on this blog. I support this campaign and I believe that FGM is impermissible. Indeed, I think that all children, whether… Read More »Female genital mutilation (FGM) and male circumcision: should there be a separate ethical discourse?

Free will beliefs and motivation to punish

In a paper forthcoming in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Cory J. Clark and co-authors provide evidence that widespread belief in the existence of free will is bolstered by a fundamental desire to punish wrongdoers (see here). As Clark et al. put it, “There seems little doubt that the subjective experience of choosing and acting supports people’s belief in free will, but our findings suggest another powerful motivating factor: the human impulse to blame and punish. People believe in free will – at least in part – because they wish to affirm that people who do immoral things could have and should have acted differently” (Clark et al. forthcoming).Read More »Free will beliefs and motivation to punish

Embracing the “sadistic” conclusion

This is not the post I was planning to write. Originally, it was going to be a heroic post where I showed my devotion to philosophical principles by reluctantly but fearlessly biting the bullet on the sadistic conclusion. Except… it turns out to be nothing like that, because the sadistic conclusion is practically void of content and embracing it is trivial.

Sadism versus repugnance

The sadistic conclusion can be found in Gustaf Arrhenius’s papers such as “An Impossibility Theorem for Welfarist Axiologies.” In it he demonstrated that – modulo a few technical assumptions – any system of population ethics has to embrace either the Repugnant Conclusion, the Anti-Egalitarian Conclusion or the Sadistic conclusion. Astute readers of my blog posts may have noticed I’m not the repugnant conclusion’s greatest fan, evah! The anti-egalitarian conclusion claims that you can make things better by keeping total happiness/welfare/preference satisfaction constant but redistributing it in a more unequal way. Few systems of ethics embrace this in theory (though many social systems seem to embrace it in practice).Read More »Embracing the “sadistic” conclusion

Private Lives, Dying Wishes, and Technological Development

Recently in Portsmouth, a statue of Charles Dickens has been unveiled. While not terribly notable in itself this event is of some interest as it ignores the last wishes of the author it is meant to honour [1].

The problem, in my view, is that this is just one of many cases in which a public figure—authors appear especially vulnerable—has been denied the fulfilment of his or her express wishes regarding post-mortem handling of his or her estate or image.Read More »Private Lives, Dying Wishes, and Technological Development