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McMahan’s Hazardous (and Irrelevant) Thought Experiment
Written by Professor Allen Buchanan and Professor Lance K. Stell This is a response to an earlier post, by Jeff McMahan, about the right to carry guns, https://blog.uehiro.ox.ac.uk/2015/04/a-challenge-to-gun-rights. Before we criticize McMahan’s argument, it is important to ascertain its implications: Assuming that, as McMahan thinks, there is no moral right to gun ownership,
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The Conservatives’ Legacies: What should we do with Inheritance Tax?
A majority in the House of Commons has provided David Cameron with the freedom to do over the next five years some of the things that he’s found difficult over the last five. One of the things that is set for reform is the law on inheritance tax, with the Tory manifesto having pledged to
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If you’re a Conservative, I’m not your friend
By Rebecca Roache Follow Rebecca on Twitter here One of the first things I did after seeing the depressing election news this morning was check to see which of my Facebook friends ‘like’ the pages of the Conservatives or David Cameron, and unfriend them. (Thankfully, none of my friends ‘like’ the UKIP page.) Life
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Should we punish crimes from the distant past?
Former Auschwitz SS officer Oskar Gröning is currently being tried as an accessory to murder for his role as an administrator in the extermination camp, and the trial has stirred up a lot of debate. One strand of the debate addresses the question whether Gröning was complicit in the extermination of prisoners, and whether he
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The Pink Princess
So we (whether ‘we’ are British, or Australians, apparently) have a new princess. Only the most curmudgeonly among us can resist a small smile at the news, right? A small minority holds themselves aloof, dismissing the whole circus as an anachronism, but no one actually thinks there is a downside. Well, I do. I think
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Speculating about technology in ethics
Many important discussions in practical ethics necessarily involve a degree of speculation about technology: the identification and analysis of ethical, social and legal issues is most usefully done in advance, to make sure that ethically-informed policy decisions do not lag behind technological development. Correspondingly, a move towards so-called ‘anticipatory ethics’ is often lauded as commendably
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Was the Draw Muhammad Competition an Incitement to Violence?
by Nigel Warburton, @philosophybites On May 3rd two men opened fire on a security guard near the ‘Muhhamad Art Exhibit & Contest’ an event in Garland, Texas, that advertised a $10,000 prize for the best cartoon drawing of the prophet. The assailants were shot dead by the police. Pamela Geller, the organiser of the event,
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Why do we like our artist on drugs, but not our sportspeople?
The internet and print media are happy to herald that movie director Lars Von Trier can’t work without alcohol. He reports that he tried to be sober and went to AA meetings for half a year, but has now started drinking again in order to be able to work. This is a victory for those
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‘Competitive Altruism’ – Why attractive women are the most successful fundraisers
By Nadira Faber Why do humans help others even when it is costly and nothing is to be expected in return? This question has not only developed into a classic in different empirical disciplines, but is also of high interest for fundraisers like charities who would like to know how to increase donations. A study