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Do people have a right to be bigots?
Last month Australia’s Attorney-General said in parliament that “people have the right to be bigots”. The remark came in the context of a debate about the government’s proposed amendments to sections of the country’s Racial Discrimination Act 1975 that deal with racial hate speech. The relevant provisions of the Act make it unlawful for a…
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‘Hello Kitty’, Society, Utopia
Several people have asked me why I wrote a post to defend Avril Lavigne’s music video ‘Hello Kitty’. I’m a little bemused by the question, as I thought my main motive was self-explanatory: it is a part of philosophers’ job to consider when it’s appropriate to use normative terms to blame someone or something. It’s one…
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Reporters Shouldn’t Embrace Bias
For a long time, objectivity and impartiality were perceived to be noble and uncontroversial goals for journalists. Objectivity is straightforwardly appealing – we want information that is accurate and undistorted by reporters’ personal politics. However, there is of late some pushback against that view (often called ‘The View from Nowhere’, which has apparently become such…
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Lethal Injection: Time for the Chop
On 29th April 2014, Clayton Lockett, 38, was executed by lethal injection in Oklahoma for the heinous crimes he committed fourteen years earlier. That evening, he was escorted to the execution chamber and placed on the table. An intravenous line was inserted in his groin. At 6.23pm, he was given midazolam, a sedative intended to…
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Cognitive science and threats to free will
It is often asserted that emerging cognitive science – especially work in psychology (e.g., that associated with work on automaticity, along with work on the power of situations to drive behavior) and cognitive neuroscience (e.g., that associated with unconscious influences on decision-making) – threatens free will in some way or other. What is not always…
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In Defence of Avril Lavigne: Racism, Cultural Appropriation and the Meaning of ‘Hello Kitty’
By Kei Hiruta The latest music video by the Canadian singer Avril Lavigne has been accused of racism and cultural appropriation.[i] Bearing the name of the world-famous Sanrio character, ‘Hello Kitty’ shows the pop star singing and dancing in what appears to be a girl’s room in Tokyo. She also explores the city, shopping at…
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Political speech crime
In an article at The conversation Professor Torcello has proposed that ‘an organised campaign funding misinformation ought to be considered criminally negligent’. I am wholly in agreement with him. I cannot think of a political party whose campaign can be characterised as anything other than an organized campaign funding misinformation and I would be delighted…
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Moral Enhancement and Violence
In recent years, I’ve written a lot on moral enhancement, including moral bioenhancement (e.g., here, here and here), and argued that we should not reject its potential benefits out of hand. One common objection has been to say something along the lines of “sure, this would be good in theory, but the science behind it…
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Complicity and Contraception: Rethinking Hobby Lobby’s Claim of ‘Substantial Burden on the Exercise of Religion’
Within the next month, the United States Supreme Court will decide whether for-profit corporations shall receive an exemption from providing certain types of contraceptives that are otherwise mandated for healthcare coverage by federal law to employees on the basis of the religious objections of the corporations’ owners. The two cases considered in tandem by the…
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The advantages and disadvantages of stigmatizing smoking
A new study among students, found that those who smoked cannabis performed better academically than their tobacco smoking, stigmatized peers. The study has been collecting data among students (8,331 in total) in grade 7,9 and 11 for 30 years, and noticed the following trends. While the use of tobacco around the 90ties decreased, the use…