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Vacancy: Postdoc Research Fellow, Future of Humanity Institute

Vacancy: Postdoc Research Fellow, Future of Humanity Institute

Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Science or Philosophy

University of Oxford, Faculty of Philosophy, Future of Humanity Institute, James Martin 21st Century School

Grade 7: £28,839 – £38,757 per annum (as at 1 October 2008)

The Future of Humanity Institute is a multidisciplinary research institute. It is part of the James Martin 21st Century School, and is hosted by the Oxford Faculty of Philosophy.

Applications are invited for a fixed-term Research Fellowship at the Future of Humanity Institute. The Fellowship is available for two years from the date of appointment.

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Justice and Mercy

The moral debate about whether Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man convicted for the Lockerbie bombing,  should have been released has now morphed into a political debate about who wanted what and who said what to whom: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2009/sep/07/ed-balls-abdelbaset-al-megrahi . But the moral debate itself remains unresolved.

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that (a) Megrahi was guilty as charged, (b) his trial was procedurally just, (c) he deserved his sentence, and (d) he is very close to death. Those who opposed freeing Megrahi tended to concentrate on (a)-(c), especially (a) and (c), as if that settled the matter. But of course those who supported freeing him believe that there was a case, based on compassion or mercy in response to (d), for releasing him before he had finished his sentence. What is going on here?

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The Age of Enhancement

Should we use drugs to prolong loving relationships?  Should we use drugs to weaken traumatic memories?  Research Associate David Edmonds’ article on enhancement for Prospect magazine is available online.  The article cites both Anders Sandberg and Julian Savulescu (Neuroenhancement of Love and Marriage: The Chemicals Between Us).   It suggests that many of the arguments made against… Read More »The Age of Enhancement

How to be happy

What makes us happy? There is a lot of data on the question now, and some surprising conclusions. One surprising conclusion is cheering: almost all of us (around 95% of people in developed countries) rate ourselves as quite happy or better. The only countries to record high levels of unhappiness are countries in which living standards have declined appreciably, such as some of the countries in the former Soviet Union and its sphere of influence. To be sure, there is some room for scepticism about how much insight people have into their happiness. Dan Haybron notes how susceptible happiness ratings are to environmental infuences – for instance, the weather on the day the person is asked to rate their happiness – and argues that we cannot take these ratings of subjective well-being (as psychologists calls them) at face value. But even Haybron concedes that the differences across large groups provide us with an insight into real causes of happiness.

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Genocide: just a word?

By: David Edmonds

In April 1915 there were hundreds of thousands of Armenians in Eastern Turkey: a year later they were gone.

One historian told me that this fact was the relevant one.  And whether or not we call what occurred a ‘genocide’ is a matter of semantics – of secondary significance. 

The family of virtually every Armenian was affected by the events of 1915/16.  Estimates about the numbers vary.   The Armenians say 1.5 million died.  Turkey says this figure is greatly exaggerated.

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When politics meets bioethics

Ethicists
disagree about very many things, but they broadly agree on how it is we should
disagree: by finding flaws in the reasoning that leads others to a contrary
conclusion, by putting forward arguments of our own, and so forth. The thought
(perhaps the illusion) is that through this process of critical discussion, we
will gradually approach the truth, the truth about what it is we ought to do.
Another assumption, and perhaps a greater illusion, is that all of this intense
debate will also eventually influence what people actually do—that it will
improve policy and practice. 

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Telling porkies: should the doctor tell her patient where the medicine comes from?

In a column in the New York Times this week Randy Cohen fields a question from an anaesthetist. Should the doctor ask a devoutly religious patient whether he minds that his anticoagulant (heparin) is derived from pigs? In reply Cohen suggests that the doctrine of informed consent requires the doctor to consider the non-medical preferences of the patient and make sure Muslims, Jews and vegetarians know where their medicine is coming from.

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Should NHS Medical Services be Rated Like TripAdvisor?

The website TripAdvisor (See: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ ) allows viewers to access (and contributed to) popular ratings of hotels, restaurants and other travel related facilities all over the world. The NHS is now operating a website – NHS Choices – that performs a similar service in respect of NHS medical services: www.nhs.uk. It contains a mix of hard data, such as information about mortality rates at hospitals and the performance of GPs across a range of different aspects of performance, as well as soft data including patients’ impressions of their stay at particular hospitals and their experience of being treated by particular GPs. The rating of hospitals, GPs and other specialisations in medicine follows on from the successful UK experience of publicising cardiac surgeons’ mortality and survival rates, a Government initiative to restore public confidence in cardiac surgery following the Bristol Royal Infirmary Scandal. According to a recent article in the Guardian this has lead to a 21% drop in mortality rates for coronary artery surgery over the last five years: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jul/30/heart-surgery-death-rates-fall.

 


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Non-lethal, yet dangerous: neuroactive agents

An article and editorial in Nature warns about the militarization of agents that alter mental states. While traditional chemical weapons are intended to hurt or kill people, these agents are intended to disable. For example, they might induce confusion, sleepiness or calm. The Chemical Weapons Convention contain a loophole for using biochemical agents for law enforcement including domestic riot control, and there is a push from some quarters to amend it to allow novel incapacitating agents. Is disabling agents just an extension of other forms of non-lethal force, or is this a slippery path we should avoid?

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How not to criticize the NHS

The British National Health Service (the NHS) has been in news a lot recently. First it was the Investor's Business Daily in the US, which claimed that:

'People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.'

This is a particularly ridiculous claim as Stephen Hawking of course has lived in the UK all of his life! He responded saying:

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