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Sinnott-Armstrong on Implicit Moral Attitudes
On October 30th, Professor Walter Sinnott-Armstrong of Duke University gave the 2014 Wellcome Lecture in Neuroethics. His talk, “Implicit Moral Attitudes”, concerned the practical and theoretical implications of recent empirical research into unconscious or sub-conscious beliefs or associations. Recordings of his talk will be made available soon Audio recording of the talk is available here:…
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Can Bioethics be done without Theology? Guest Post from Charles Camosy
Guest Post: Charles Camosy, Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at Fordham University, New York City E-mail: ccamosy@gmail.com Twitter: @nohiddenmagenta The discipline of theological bioethics is in trouble. Especially as theology continues to morph into religious studies in many university departments, “social ethics” now swallows everything in its path—with almost all questions of ethics becoming questions…
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Abortion on the grounds of sex
Apparently some UK doctors have been aborting babies because their parents don’t want a baby of that sex. In response the government is now planning to outlaw abortion on the grounds of sex. It is already illegal, however, so we must wonder what the politicians are up to. A question being ignored is whether it…
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Pedophiles and homosexuals – apples and oranges?
Australian columnist and TV personality Mia Freedman has been caught in a social media storm after comparing pedophiles to gay people. Freedman’s gaffe didn’t warrant the furious response it got; the response seems mainly the product of people’s inability to understand how analogies and similes work. Freedman, arguing in favor of a public sex offender’s register,…
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Is there Value in Teaching Moral Values?
In Japan, being good will soon be a formal subject in school education. The Japanese education ministry must develop textbooks and curricula to teach morality, and tests to grade it, which occasions a host of interesting practical questions (for a thoughtful list). In addition to practical questions about how to implement such a program, there…
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Situations and responsibility
I think this is true: my behavior, and your behavior, and all human behavior, is shaped in a wide range of ways by the environment. What do I mean by the environment? Here are some examples. Being in an environment with loud noise levels might make you less likely to help strangers in need (Matthews…
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Twitter, Apps, and Depression
The Samaritans have launched a controversial new app that alerts Twitter users when someone they ‘follow’ on the site tweets something that may indicate suicidal thoughts. To use the app, named ‘Samaritan Radar’, Twitter members must visit the Samaritans’ website, and choose to activate the app on their device. Having entered one’s twitter details on…
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Student Bursaries for Travel to Christine M. Korsgaard’s Uehiro Lectures on the Moral and Legal Status of Animals and attend Animal Ethics Workshop
10 bursaries of up to £200 are available for current students of any University to travel to Oxford to attend the 2014 Uehiro Lectures “The Moral and Legal Status of Animals”, given by Professor Christine Korsgaard of Harvard University December 1 – 3, and to participate in a workshop on December 3. The workshop will…
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Why don’t we just replace professional sports with paté baking already?
As the new season started, there was in the United States debates around the health of participants, responsibilities in and the ethics of American football. In September this year, a 16-year-old player died after a collision with another player. Earlier in the same month, it was reported that brain trauma affects one in three retired…
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Saving administration costs or saving lives?
By Lucius Caviola & Nadira Faulmüller Imagine a car company advertising as follows: “90c of any dollar you pay for your car goes directly to building cars. Only 10% of our expenses go into planning, designing, and advertising them.” Such a campaign strategy would seem patently bizarre; when buying a product few of us are…