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“Puppy Farm” or “Commercial Breeder”?
As the diverse range of topics on this blog testifies, philosophical questions concerning practical ethics crop up every day, in a variety of circumstances. Today, I had my own ethical dilemma – this time regarding puppies. Having just moved into my new house, I am now searching for a puppy. When I saw an advert
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Genetically Modifying Mosquitoes to ‘Bite the Dust’? Ethical Considerations
At some point, most people will have questioned the necessity of the existence of mosquitoes. In the UK at least, the things that might prompt us into such reflection are probably trivial; in my own case, the mild irritation of an itchy and unsightly swelling caused by a mosquito bite will normally lead me to
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Girls should do competitive sports to ‘build confidence and resilience’. Really?
The chief executive of the Girls Day School Trust claimed this week that girls should take part in competitive sport as a way to build confidence and resilience.[1] The claim is particularly about taking part in sports where one wins or loses. As far as is reported, these claims are not based on studies showing
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If we chose it, would we need it?
An interesting new target has appeared in the discussion on human enhancements: to prevent and halt anthropogenic climate change by the use of moral bioenhancement. The issue of moral enhancements is extensively discussed, for example, in recent American Journal of Bioethics (April 2014, Volume 14, Number 4). Often the object of high hopes is
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Public Sinners: Forgive or Forget?
If you haven’t heard anything about the ongoing saga of Donald Sterling, here is a quick run-down. Sterling owns an NBA team – the Los Angeles Clippers. By most accounts, Sterling is not a morally upstanding person (see here and here). But according to (at least) the court of public opinion, Sterling went too far recently
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What if schizophrenics really are possessed by demons, after all?
By Rebecca Roache Follow Rebecca on Twitter here Is there anything wrong with seriously entertaining this possibility? Not according to the author of a research article published this month in Journal of Religion and Health. In ‘Schizophrenia or possession?’,1 M. Kemal Irmak notes that schizophrenia is a devastating chronic mental condition often characterised by auditory hallucinations.
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The Right to Forget the Stock Market’s blemished Past
One of the great pleasures of studying human behaviour is to see that what we find in our experiments, what we theorize in our papers and textbooks – as unlikely and counterintuitive it appears to be – actually predicts what happens in so-called real life. Take, for instance, the current build-up of a stock-market bubble
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Historical Reconciliation in East Asia: How Optimistic Should We Be?
By Kei Hiruta In the latest episode of the Public Philosopher, Michael Sandel invites young men and women from China, Japan and South Korea to discuss national guilt and historical reconciliation. The conversation begins with factual questions concerning, for example, the nature of Japan’s past imperial expansion and the sincerity of the Japanese government’s post-war
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In praise of organ-ised sport
By Dominic Wilkinson (@NeonatalEthics) The BBC reports today on a recent organ donation initiative in Brazil. This initiative has led to a 400% increase in the numbers of heart transplants in a local hospital. The waiting list for organs in the city of Recife reportedly dropped to zero in the first year after introduction of
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Food packaging matters more than informed consent to treatment
Packets of cigarettes carry pictures showing purchasers what their lungs or their arteries will look like if they carry on smoking. Consumers International and the World Obesity Federation are now suggesting that some foods should bear similar images. Assume for the sake of argument that the practice would be effective in discouraging the purchase of