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Hedonism, the Experience Machine, and Virtual Reality
By Roger Crisp I take hedonism about well-being or welfare to be the view that the only thing that is good for any being is pleasure, and that what makes pleasure good is nothing other than its being pleasant. The standard objections to hedonism of this kind have mostly been of the same form: there
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Oxford Uehiro Centre Goes DefaultVeg
By Katrien Devolder “Britons have cut their meat consumption by 17% over the past decade but will need to double these efforts if they are to meet targets for healthy diets and sustainable food production set out in the national food strategy earlier this year”. So began an article in The Guardian last Friday.[1] The article was
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Responsibility and Victim-Blaming
Written by Dr Rebecca Brown The recent sentencing of Wayne Couzens for the murder of Sarah Everard, along with the murder of Sabina Nessa last month, has prompted discussion in the UK of the prevalence of violence against women and the shortcomings of the criminal justice system. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has himself criticised the
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Ethics of Vaccine Passports
Vaccine Passports as a Human Right The main way to control the pandemic, as we have all painfully found out, has been to restrict the movement of people. This stops people getting infected and infecting others. It is the justified basis for quarantine of people who have been in high risk areas, lockdown, isolation and
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The Morality of Carbon Border Taxes
By Doug McConnell The European Parliament has adopted a tool called the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) which will apply the EU’s carbon pricing to imported goods. This means that imports from countries with lesser or non-existent carbon pricing will effectively face a tariff. Various governments including Australia and China have objected strongly to the
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The double ethical mistake of vaccinating children against COVID-19
Alberto Giubilini Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics University of Oxford Against the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI)’s advice that did not recommend COVID-19 vaccination for children, the four Chief Medical Officers in the UK have just recommended that all children aged 12-15 should be vaccinated with the mRNA Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
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Philosophical Fiddling While the World Burns
By Charles Foster An unprecedented editorial has just appeared in many health journals across the world. It relates to climate change. The authors say that they are ‘united in recognising that only fundamental and equitable changes to societies will reverse our current trajectory.’ Climate change, they agree, is the major threat to public health. Here
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We Should Vaccinate Children in High-income Countries Against COVID-19, Too
Written by Lisa Forsberg, Anthony Skelton, Isra Black In early September, children in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are set to return to school. (Scottish schoolchildren have already returned.) Most will not be vaccinated, and there will be few, if any, measures in place protecting them from COVID-19 infection. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and
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Judgebot.exe Has Encountered a Problem and Can No Longer Serve
Written by Stephen Rainey Artificial intelligence (AI) is anticipated by many as having the potential to revolutionise traditional fields of knowledge and expertise. In some quarters, this has led to fears about the future of work, with machines muscling in on otherwise human work. Elon Musk is rattling cages again in this context with his
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In Praise of ‘Casual’ Friendship
By Ben Davies Academics, especially early in our careers, move around quite a lot. Having done my PhD in London, I have also lived or worked in Leeds, Liverpool, Oxford, and rural Pennsylvania; I am far from the most well-travelled academic I know. In many cases, when we arrive at a new job, we know