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Prometheus and the Drive to Mastery
Writers who express caution about the over-enthusiastic embrace of new technologies, such as Michael Sandel, who worries about human enhancement and genetic engineering, and Clive Hamilton, who worries about geoengineering, sometimes warn us about the ‘Promethean attitude’, or ‘the Promethean urge’. According to Sandel, human enhancement and genetic engineering ‘… represent a kind of hyperagency…
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7 reasons not to feel bad about yourself when you have acted immorally
Feeling bad about oneself is a common response to realising that one has acted wrongly, or that one could have done something morally better. It is a reaction that is at least partly inspired by a cultural background that Western civilisation has been carrying on its back for centuries. But contrary to appearances and folk…
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Foetal alcohol syndrome, compensation and harm
A case currently before the UK Court of Appeal could have far-reaching implications for mothers who drink during pregnancy. Lawyers for a seven-year-old child with foetal alcohol syndrome caused by her mother’s heavy drinking, argue she should receive compensation from the government-funded Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority as she has been the victim of a crime.
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St. Cross Seminar: Natural Human Rights, Michael Boylan
Are human rights natural or conventional? That is, does one possess human rights in virtue of being a member of the human race, or, do these rights only come into existence only once they have been written in by some sovereign body? This question was at the heart of Michael Boylan’s St. Cross Seminar, ‘Natural Human…
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C. S. Lewis as a moral philosopher
Tomorrow it is C.S. Lewis’s birthday. He’d have been 116. He died 51 years ago, his death pushed out of the headlines by the deaths of JFK and Aldous Huxley. He’s had far more influence than either. He’s remembered mainly as a children’s writer (the most dogmatic atheists, terrified or disgusted by the roar of…
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Statistical Victims and the Value of Security
As illustrated by several recent events, Mexico suffers from a lack of security. The country holds the world record in kidnappings, with an estimated number of 123,470 people kidnapped just in 2013. In August 2014, the official number of missing people was 22,320. Citizens are fed up and are demanding security, perhaps the most basic…
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Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics
Announcement: Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics, open to all students at Oxford University Graduate and undergraduate students currently enrolled at the University of Oxford in any subject are invited to enter the Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics by submitting an essay of up to 2000 words on any topic relevant to practical ethics.…
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Biomedical enhancement and the need for more precise conceptions
Much of the discussion about biomedical enhancements is about arguing whether some biomedical enhancement would, or would not be a good, ethical, or efficient means for enhancing a particular human characteristic. In this blog and in other bioethical literature bioethicists discuss the proposed effects that biomedical enhancements would have, for example, to intelligence and other…
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Was it the State?
Two months ago today in Mexico, on September 26, María de los Ángeles Pineda, wife of the former mayor of Iguala, José Luis Abarca, prepared to give a speech in which she was to report on her work as president of the local public institution dedicated to social assistance (DIF). At the same time, a…