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Ethics

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

10-year-old gets a tattoo, mother gets arrested

By Brian Earp

Follow Brian on Twitter by clicking here.

See Brian’s most recent prior post on this blog here.

See a list of all of Brian’s previous posts here.

 

Inking arms, piercing ears, and removing foreskins: The inconsistency of parental consent laws in the State of Georgia 

Gaquan Napier watched his older brother die in Acworth, Georgia after being hit by a speeding car. He was with him in those numbing final moments. And now Gaquan wants to keep his brother close to his own heart as he picks up the pieces and moves through life: in the form of a tattoo on his upper arm. Malik (that’s his brother’s name) plus the numbers from Malik’s old basketball jersey. Rest in peace. A memorial to his sibling and best friend, whose life was cut tragically short.

Gaquan is ten years old. So he asked his mother, Chuntera Napier, about the tattoo. She was moved by the request, by the sincerity and maturity of her son’s motivations. She assented. She took Gaquan to have the remembrance he wanted etched into his arm in ink.

Now stop the presses. Chuntera was arrested last week under child cruelty laws and for being party to a crime. Someone at Gaquan’s school had seen his tattoo and tattled to the authorities. But what was the offense?

Read More »10-year-old gets a tattoo, mother gets arrested

What is so bad about polygamy?

By Brian Earp (Follow Brian on Twitter by clicking here.)

What do gay marriage and polygamy have in common?

To find out, watch this exchange between US Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, and a New Hampshire college student.  Here’s an edit to give the gist:

Student: How about the ideas that all men are created equal, and the rights to happiness and liberty? [Applause.]

Santorum: Ok, so — Are we saying that everyone should have the right to marry?

Audience: Yes! Yes!

Santorum: Everyone? Ok, so, anybody can marry anybody else.

Audience: Yes, yes!

Santorum: So anyone can marry several people? …

Read More »What is so bad about polygamy?

Lawmaker Steals Leather Pants: Brain May Be Responsible, Lawyer Says

The title of this post is an edited version of a headline that appeared this week at ABC news. The story behind it is that a Californian politician named Mary was caught shoplifting, and her lawyer says that her impaired judgment may have been caused by a benign brain tumour.

We can accept that in principle, a brain tumour could undermine  Mary’s moral responsibility and excuse  her actions, because we now know that tumours can press on parts of the brain and prevent them functioning properly – causing all kinds of unusual thoughts and behaviours. And Mary could hardly be held responsible for her having a brain tumour. She didn’t choose to have it; it just happened to her.

Read More »Lawmaker Steals Leather Pants: Brain May Be Responsible, Lawyer Says

Experimenting with oversight with more bite?

It was probably hard for the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) to avoid getting plenty of coal in its Christmas stockings this year, sent from various parties who felt NSABB were either stifling academic freedom or not doing enough to protect humanity. So much for good intentions.

The background is the potentially risky experiments on demonstrating the pandemic potential of bird flu: NSABB urged that the resulting papers not include “the methodological and other details that could enable replication of the experiments by those who would seek to do harm”. But it can merely advice, and is fairly rarely called upon to review potentially risky papers. Do we need something with more teeth, or will free and open research protect us better?

Read More »Experimenting with oversight with more bite?

Ferretting out fearsome flu: should we make pandemic bird flu viruses?

Scientists have made a new strain of bird flu that most likely could spread between humans, triggering a pandemic if it were released. A misguided project, or a good idea? How should we handle dual use research where merely knowing something can be risky, yet this information can be relevant for reducing other risks?

Read More »Ferretting out fearsome flu: should we make pandemic bird flu viruses?