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Peter Singer and Christian Ethics: Beyond Polarization
For those of us doing Catholic moral theology, we most often hear and read the name “Peter Singer” invoked by our colleagues in a dismissive way. Indeed, if one can somehow show that another’s argument is heading in a Singer-like direction, then for many of us one essentially has reduced it to the absurd. Furthermore,…
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The dignity of the referee
FIFA want referees to be tested for drugs: delegates at FIFA’s medical congress were told by FIFA officers that referees in the future might be tested for doping. “We have to consider referees as part of the game,” said FIFA’s chief medical officer Jiri Dvorak. “We do not have an indication that this is a…
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Repent, brother Dawkins
By Charles Foster Richard Dawkins is at it again in the Guardian. It’s the familiar stuff: a fluent, funny, whingeing litany of jibes about genocidal Israelites, filicidal Gods and benighted Tennessean Creationists. We’ve all heard it all before, of course. Dawkins has become a hackneyed national treasure. He’s a sort of pantomime dame – always…
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Turning Cardinal Newman on his Head: Just how bad is a bad intention?
Most of us think that intention has great significance in practical ethics. If you barge into me, my reaction will be very different if I believe you intended to do so from the case in which I think it was an accident. And if you believe the so-called ‘doctrine of double effect’, you will think…
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A fatal irony: Why the “circumcision solution” to the AIDS epidemic in Africa may increase transmission of HIV
By Brian D. Earp * Note: this article has been re-posted at various other sites, sometimes with minor edits. This is the original and should be referred to in case of any discrepancies. A fatal irony: Why the “circumcision solution” to the AIDS epidemic in Africa may increase transmission of HIV 1. Experimental doubts A handful…
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Wellcome Lecture in Neuroethics: Wayne Hall on the brain disease model of addiction
Wellcome Lecture in Neuroethics: The brain disease model of addiction: Assessing its validity, utility and implications for public policy towards the treatment and prevention of addiction Wayne Hall, NHMRC Australia Fellow, University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research Thursday 14 June, 5.30 – 7.00 p.m., Seminar Room 1, Oxford Martin School, 34 Broad St. ALL…
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European versus US attitudes to geoengineering
Casual observation suggests that among scientists researching geoengineering technologies there is a marked difference in attitude between Americans and continental Europeans. The United Sates is the home of the idea of the technofix, so American researchers tend to have more faith in the possibilities for technological intervention to control the global climate. There is a…
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Crisis in the Catholic Church
Professor Tony Coady is Professorial Fellow in Applied Philosophy and Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at Melbourne University. He is currently visiting the University of Oxford as Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Applied Ethics. He is a Catholic. In the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign, the famous Protestant historian Thomas Macaulay wrote…
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Key moments of supreme importance
If you want to effectively change the world, it helps to know which levers to push, and which ones can be moved most effectively. For instance reducing HIV suffering through the treatement of Kaposi’s sarcoma is about a thousand times less efficient that treating HIV through peer and education programs for high-risk groups. So if…
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Should Peer Review be Rejected?
In most academic disciplines academics devote considerable energies to trying to publish in prestigious journals. These journals are, almost invariably, peer reviewed journals. When an article is submitted their editors send this out to expert reviewers who report on it and, if the article is judged to be of sufficient quality by those referees –…