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What intelligent alien life can tell us about morality
Stephen Hawking made some headlines when he recently argued that although it’s highly probable that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, it would be a grave mistake to try to actively try to establish contact with other intelligent beings. Reflection on our own history, on how European explorers dealt with technologically less advanced
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Are We Future Evil Aliens?
By: Julian Savulescu Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge physicist, has recently argued, in a Discovery channel documentary, that alien life forms probably exist somewhere in the Universe, but we should avoid contact with them. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8642558.stm). His reason is, apparently, that if they are anything like humans, they are likely to be aggressive and either exterminate us
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Morality: what’s disgust got to do with it?
Kathleen Taylor has got an interesting recent piece in the Guardian about the importance of the emotion of disgust for our moral lives. “If you had a dog”, she asks, “and it died a natural death, how would you feel about roasting and eating it?” Most of us would be revulsed by such an idea.
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Political Responsibility
The prospect of a hung parliament following the upcoming election has raised several interesting ethical issues. One such issue which has been discussed is what are the responsibilities of the party which holds the balance of power? Should members of that party support the party holding the majority of votes or follow their own party
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I’m a taxpayer, I want my data!
A ruling by the Information Commissioner has ordered scientists at Queen’s University in Belfast to hand over copies of 40 years of research data on tree rings after a long battle with a climate sceptic. (PDF of the ruling) This is an important precedent for scientists, who have to comply with the strictest interpretation of
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Upcoming Events in May 2010
25 May, 17:30, Lecture Theatre, Faculty of Philosophy, 10 Merton Street, Oxford 3rd Leverhulme Lecture "Are Addicts Responsible? Perspectives from Philosophy, Psychology, Neuroscience and Law" Professor Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Kenan Institute for Ethics, Duke University) All interested in attending should email nicholas.iles@philosophy.ox.ac.uk
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The equal air-time solution for controversial research
When are placebos ethical in medical research? One common answer is that it is only appropriate to use placebos in research when there is no proven effective treatment for the condition (1). On this view, if there is a proven treatment placebos would be unethical, and any trial should compare new drugs or treatments with
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Arguing about moral responsibility
Outside applied ethics and neuroethics, I work in philosophy of agency, specifically on the interlinked topics of free will and moral responsibility (interlinked because I, like most participants in the debate, understand free will, if it exists, to be the power we have to act in a way that makes us morally responsible for our
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Volcano Ethics: Should we be Flying the Unfriendly Skies?
An ash cloud produced by the eruption of the Eyjafjallajoekull volcano in Iceland has led to the severe disruption of airline transportation in the UK and across a wide swathe of Europe, with UK airspace almost completely closed since midday last Thursday. Passengers, freight importers and exporters, and airlines are just some of those affected
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Tuberculosis: the return of the white plague?
The last few weeks have seen an explosion of reports concerning the status of the worldwide fight against tuberculosis, largely precipitated by World TB Day last month on March 24. Tuberculosis was once considered a disease of the past, an illness, like diphtheria, thought to have faded away with the Victorian era as a serious