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Ethics

On a happier note

Starting with the financial crisis back in autumn it seems that greed and poor judgement are two persistent themes this year. While mankind was not entirely unfamiliar with the plague of greed prior to October 2008, recent events have meant that hardly a day goes by when such vicious matters do not make the headlines in one form or another. Attending an Oxford college ceremony the other day gave a bit of a historical perspective on how to deal with greed. The ‘pennies from the tower’ ceremony involved (or used to involve in times prior to current health and safety regulations) inviting a group of impoverished children onto the college lawn and then letting the pennies rain down from the tower above. But as they started to scurry around, fighting each other for the coins, they noticed that the pennies were hot. Piping hot. This was considered an excellent way to teach the children that greed is a vice and that there is no such thing as a free lunch. No doubt the blisters on their little hands would have served as an efficient reminder of this harsh lesson. One of the problems with this practice is it is far from clear that brute force the best way to introduce more positive values and behavioural patterns in people. Indeed, it is not even clear that the threat of punishment and public humiliation works as a deterrent.

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A ‘bonkers waste of money’?

The University of Oxford and the British government have come under fire for spending £300,000 on a study showing that 'ducks like water' (see e.g. The Guardian). The Taxpayer's Alliance has issued a statement pillorying this 'bonkers waste of money', and on surface it sounds like they're right. However, when you look deeper it becomes apparent that the type of research which was performed may well be of great value.

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Self-control matters – but to what extent can it be taught?

Recently in
the news, a report published by the independent think-tank Demos reminds us of
the importance of the capacity for self-control (it also mentions empathy, to
which most of the following remarks apply) in determining life outcomes. It
argues that self-control lessons should be taught at school if children,
particularly from deprived backgrounds, are to be given the tools they need to
succeed in life – low-self-control has for instance been shown to positively
correlate with length of unemployment or criminal behaviour, and negatively
with academic achievement. The report echoes renewed interest in the United
States in a now famous experiment by Walter Mischel on deferred gratification,
dating back to the late 1960s. Mischel tested the capacity of a group of
four-year olds to resist the temptation to eat straightaway a marshmallow he
had given them. The children who were able to refrain turned out to be better
adjusted, more dependable and to do better academically on the whole later in
life.

 

The report
by Demos makes important points and its proposals deserve to be supported.
Nevertheless, even if they are put into practice, we might still feel concerned
about how effective we can expect them to be. There is indeed a body of
evidence suggesting that the capacity for self-control is to a large extent
genetically determined (Wright & Beaver, 2005; Beaver & al., 2009).

 

Read More »Self-control matters – but to what extent can it be taught?

How much should we care about MPs’ expense claims?

Few people
in the UK could have missed the furious storm about MPs’ expense claims that has dominated the news headlines for the past several weeks.  A steady flow of stories has revealed not
only which MPs bent the rules on expenses, but also that many of the rules are themselves objectionable and arguably
facilitate a misuse of taxpayers’ money.

Of course,
few of us enjoy paying tax, but most of us grudgingly accept that it is
necessary if we want certain social goods like decent healthcare and a fair
justice system.  None of us likes to
think of our money instead being directed towards those who already enjoy a
higher income and better job perks than we do. 
What is most striking about the current focus on MPs’ expense claims,
however, is the fact that we are in the middle of a serious recession. 
And the amount of taxpayers’ money used to finance MPs' bogus
mortgage payments, luxury goods,
and furniture is but a drop in the ocean compared to the financial losses suffered by
homeowners due to falling property prices, by the half-million workers who have lost their jobs in the past nine months, and by those still employed whose tax payments must help support the newly jobless.  Given that the impact of a recession on
ordinary people is at least partly the result of government decision-making,
why does the recession consistently take second place in the headlines to the
relatively trivial matter of MPs’ expense claims?

Read More »How much should we care about MPs’ expense claims?

Biting into the sour apple: liberal society, abortion rights and sex selection

The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare has recently declared that it is impossible to deny abortions to women who base their decision on the sex of the foetus. This ruling came about after a case where a woman twice aborted foetuses because they were female. This upset not only the medical personnel, but also social minister Göran Hägglund who declared that it was horrible that people valued sexes differently. But while the majority of Swedes probably do think sex selection is immoral, the right to free abortion is equally strongly held. This poses an interesting problem for socially and politically liberal societies like Sweden: allow gender selection, or try to restrict abortion?

Read More »Biting into the sour apple: liberal society, abortion rights and sex selection

Pandemic ethics: The boy who cried ‘flu’!

The headlines in the last week have been dramatic. California has declared a state of emergency. The World Health Organisation has raised its pandemic alert status to level 5 – its second highest level. The UK government is about to post leaflets to every household providing information on how to reduce spread of an outbreak of H1N1 influenza (swine flu).

It is not clear whether the threatened pandemic will eventuate. But the response to a possible or to a real pandemic raises a number of ethical questions. This blog will hopefully address some of those questions in the coming days. But here is one to start with. How ought the government to respond to the threat of pandemic influenza?

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Intuitive pirates: why do we accept file sharing so much?

Piracy is in the headlines, whether in Somalian waters or Swedish cyberspace. A Stockholm court this friday found four men guilty of promoting copyright infringement by running the popular file-sharing site The Pirate Bay and sentenced them to one year in prison as well as a 30 million kronor fine (about $3.5 million). The case will no doubt go to a higher court and the circus (as well as the piracy) will continue. Legally, at least in the sense of the spirit of the laws banning copyright infringement, the case is pretty clear. But morally, what is wrong with file sharing? And why don't people care?

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Ecclesiastical gaydar: should churches be allowed to discriminate priests?

Melbourne's Catholic Churches have decided to test potential priests for sexual orientation, banning those that appear to be gay. This is in accordance with the Vatican recommendation that even celibate gays should not be allowed in the priesthood. Needless to say, both people within and outside the church have reacted negatively to it. But to what extent can a church declare who is fit to hold positions in it? And would the testing be fair?

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Bad doctor, bad prosecutor or bad laws?

Ethics, medical practice and the law should ideally coincide. But as a current affair in Sweden shows, it is all too easy for them to collide.

On March 2 police took a doctor into custody at the Astrid Lindgren Children's Hospital in front of her colleauges, suspected of killing an infant. The background is tragic: last year a three month pre-term infant suffered a stroke, causing serious brain damage. This was likely due to a medical mistake that was duly reported. Some months afterwards the dying infant was taken of ventilaton and died, with the consent of the parents. She was given high doses the painkiller morphine and anaesthetic thiopental to prevent suffering. Apparently the prosecutor investigating the initial medical mistake noticed these high levels and decided to investigate whether manslaughter had taken place. Much criticism has been aimed at the prosecutor for the heavy-handed use of the police and putting the doctor into arrest, especially since the events occured several months ago and it is very unlikely there is any danger of tampering with evidence. But it is more troubling that the doctors involved (at least given currently available information) were acting according to standard medical praxis. Are a sizeable fraction of the Swedish medical profession guilty of manslaughter?

Read More »Bad doctor, bad prosecutor or bad laws?