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How Should We Regulate Genetic Enhancement Technologies?
A Guest Post Written by Jonny Anomaly It’s been 20 years since Allen Buchanan and his colleagues published From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice. The book was a landmark, and it repays careful reading. But there is at least one kind of question that has been largely (if not entirely) ignored in discussions
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The Ethics of Stress, Resilience, and Moral Injury Among Police and Military Personnel
In a fascinating presentation hosted in March by the Oxford Uehiro Centre in Practical Ethics, Professor Seumas Miller spoke about what is now known as ‘moral injury’ and its relation to PTSD, especially in the context of war fighting and police work.
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Guest Post: How Should We Evaluate Deaths?
Written by: Carl Tollef Solberg, Senior Research Fellow, Bergen Centre for Ethics and Priority Setting (BCEPS), University of Bergen. Espen Gamlund, Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, University of Bergen. In 2015, there were 56.4 million deaths worldwide (WHO 2017).[i] Most people would say that the majority of these deaths were bad. If this is the
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Withdrawing Life Support: Only One Person’s View Matters
Dominic Wilkinson, University of Oxford Shortly before Frenchman Vincent Lambert’s life support was due to be removed, doctors at Sebastopol Hospital in Reims, France, were ordered to stop. An appeal court ruled that life support must continue. Lambert was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident in 2008 and has been diagnosed as being in a
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Regulating The Untapped Trove Of Brain Data
Written by Stephen Rainey and Christoph Bublitz Increasing use of brain data, either from research contexts, medical device use, or in the growing consumer brain-tech sector raises privacy concerns. Some already call for international regulation, especially as consumer neurotech is about to enter the market more widely. In this post, we wish to look at
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Shamima Begum and the Public Good
Written by Steve Clarke,Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities and Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford, & School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Charles Sturt University Shamima Begum, who left the UK in 2015 at age 15, to join the Islamic State, has been the subject of consistent media attention since she
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Cross Post: Ten Ethical Flaws in the Caster Semenya Decision on Intersex in Sport
Written by Julian Savulescu, University of Oxford Caster Semenya is legally female, was from birth raised as female and identifies as a female. Jon Connell on flickr , CC BY-NC Middle-distance runner Caster Semenya will need to take hormone-lowering agents, or have surgery, if she wishes to continue her career in her chosen athletic events. The
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Caster Semenya, What’s Next?
Guest Post: Torbjörn Tännsjö, Kristian Claëson Emeritus Professor of Practical Philosophy Statistically speaking, women perform less well than men in most sports. Their top results are 10-12 % worse than those of men. If they are to have a chance to compete at the top level, they need a protected space. At least, this has been
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Arbitrariness as an Ethical Criticism
Written by Ben Davies We recently saw a legal challenge to the current UK law that compels fertility clinics to destroy frozen eggs after a decade. According to campaigners, the ten-year limit may have had a rationale when it was instituted, but advances in freezing technology have rendered the limit “arbitrary”. Appeals to arbitrariness often
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In Praise Of Dementia
By Charles Foster Statistically there is a good chance that I will ultimately develop dementia. It is one of the most feared conditions, but bring it on, I say. It will strip me of some of my precious memories and some of my cognitive function, but it will also strip me of many of the