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Ending life and end-of-life care
Eve Richardson, chief executive of the National Council for Palliative Care and the Dying Matters coalition, argues that the government needs radically to improve end-of-life care in the UK, and makes several excellent suggestions about how that might be done. I agree wholeheartedly, and would like to add a suggestion of my own: that end-of-life…
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We ARE lords of the planet – that’s the problem
The lord of the manor is not a typical peasant, and doesn’t have the same responsibilities. Nowadays, it is quite fashionable to see humans as part of the natural world, part of a cycle of life, dependent on a nature that could eradicate us in an instant if it chose to. The truth is far less comforting.…
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Censoring Foetuses
In the US, Randall Terry is challenging Obama for Democratic leadership. Strangely, his reason for doing so is in order to be able to show graphic anti-abortion adverts featuring aborted foetuses, holocaust victims, and a black person being lynched.
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What is so bad about polygamy?
By Brian Earp (Follow Brian on Twitter by clicking here.) What do gay marriage and polygamy have in common? To find out, watch this exchange between US Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, and a New Hampshire college student. Here’s an edit to give the gist: Student: How about the ideas that all men are created equal,…
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Lawmaker Steals Leather Pants: Brain May Be Responsible, Lawyer Says
The title of this post is an edited version of a headline that appeared this week at ABC news. The story behind it is that a Californian politician named Mary was caught shoplifting, and her lawyer says that her impaired judgment may have been caused by a benign brain tumour. We can accept that in…
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Would you swim in Hitler’s pool?
A friend of mine recently returned from a visit to a beautiful and imposing villa, now the British ambassador’s residence in Rome. During World War II it housed the German embassy, and prisoners were tortured in the cellars. The swimming pool was built for Adolf Hitler, and this information, said my friend, would put her off…
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Experimenting with oversight with more bite?
It was probably hard for the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) to avoid getting plenty of coal in its Christmas stockings this year, sent from various parties who felt NSABB were either stifling academic freedom or not doing enough to protect humanity. So much for good intentions. The background is the potentially…
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‘There is no right not to be offended’: true or false?
‘There is no right not to be offended!’: It’s a popular slogan. At least, it must be if Google is anything to go by. I typed the phrase ‘no right not to be offended’ into ‘advanced search’ and came up with ‘about’ 1,780,000 sites. The slogan is especially favoured by those who, rightly or wrongly, …
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Giving isn’t demanding*
Christmas is about giving. But giving how much? £50 might seem like a lot for a Christmas present. But how about giving 50% of your annual wage? There are now-familiar arguments that we in rich countries ought to give a lot more to the developed world than we typically do. In fact, Peter Singer and…
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NeuroLaw: Do we have a responsibility to use neuroscience to inform law?
The airwaves buzzed last week on BBC radio about biological predispositions towards violence, brain-based lie detection systems, tumors associated with pedophilia, and psychopaths. The BBC looked to the Neuroethics Centre’s own Walter Sinott-Armstrong for his perspective on neuroscience in law in light of the release of the Royal Society’s recent report on the topic (on which he…