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Guest Post: Crispr Craze and Crispr Cares
Written by Robert Ranisch, Institute for Ethics and History of Medicine, University of Tuebingen @RobRanisch Newly discovered tools for the targeted editing of the genome have been generating talk of a revolution in gene technology for the last five years. The CRISPR/Cas9-method draws most of the attention by enabling a more simple and precise, cheaper
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Article Announcement:Which lives matter most? Thinking about children who are not yet born confronts us with the question of our ethical obligations to future people.
Professor Dominic Wilkinson and Keyur Doolabh have recently published a provocative essay at Aeon online magazine: Imagine that a 14-year-old girl, Kate, decides that she wants to become pregnant. Kate’s parents are generally broadminded, and are supportive of her long-term relationship with a boy of the same age. They are aware that Kate is sexually
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Video Series: Peter Singer on Vegetarianism
Is it okay to eat one hamburger per year? Is it acceptable to eat a hamburger made from a ‘happy cow’? The production of crops may result in more animals killed than the production of meat from grass-fed cattle and sheep – does this mean we should eat more meat and less crops? Should we eat
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Cross Post: Italy has introduced mandatory vaccinations – other countries should follow its lead
Written by Alberto Giubilini This article was originally published on The Conversation In the first four months of this year, around 1,500 cases of measles were reported in Italy. As a response to the outbreak, the Italian government introduced a law making 12 vaccinations mandatory for preschool and school-age children. Parents will have to provide
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The Campaign Trail as a Carnival of Virtues
by Andreas Kappes @AnKappes Imagine you are asked to evaluate candidates who apply for a job. The person who gets the job will interact with you a lot. What would be more important to you, that the person is friendly, honest, and overall a good person or that the person is competent, educated, and good
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Agreement and disagreement about experimental treatment. The Charlie Gard Appeal
by Dominic Wilkinson and Julian Savulescu @Neonatalethics @juliansavulescu Tomorrow, the UK Court of Appeal will review the controversial case of a British infant, Charlie Gard. Charlie’s parents are appealing a recent High Court decision that gave doctors permission to withdraw his life support. They have raised money for Charlie to travel to the US for
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Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics:In It To Win It: Is Prize-giving Bad for Philosophy? Written by Rebecca Buxton
This essay received an Honorable Mention in the Graduate Category of the Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics 2017 Written by University of Oxford student, Rebecca Buxton INTRODUCTORY REMARKS We live in a culture of prize-giving. The Nobel Prize, the Medal of Honour, the Man Booker and, not least, the Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics.
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Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics: Global Warming & Vegetarianism: What should I do, when what I do makes no difference? By Fergus Peace
This essay received an Honorable Mention in the Graduate Category of the Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics 2017 Written by University of Oxford student, Fergus Peace The Problem of Cumulative Impact In large, integrated societies, some of the most important moral challenges we face can only be resolved by large-scale collective action. Global poverty and
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Are Incentives Corrupting? The Case of Paying People to be Healthy.
Written by Dr Rebecca Brown Financial incentives are commonplace in everyday life. As tools of states, corporations and individuals, they enable the ‘tweaking’ of motivations in ways more desirable to the incentiviser. A parent may pay her child £1 to practice the piano for an hour; a café offers a free coffee for every nine
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Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics: Prostitution: You Can’t Have Your Cake and Sell It*. Written by Simon-Pierre Chevarie-Cossette
This essay received an Honorable Mention in the Graduate Category of the Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics 2017 Written by University of Oxford student, Simon-Pierre Chevarie-Cossette Abstract: I offer a new** argument for the thesis that prostitution is not just a normal job. It has the advantage of being compatible with the claim that humans