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This company is employing children? Let’s boycott their products! Or better not?
Regularly, media reports reveal that Western companies have children working in their manufactures in Third or Second World countries – may it be for clothing, furniture or, as recently, technical gadgets. Such reports are often followed by people calling for a boycott of the company’s products. ‘Work done by children’ is an extremely broad expression.…
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PVS Patients Communicate: BBC Report
A BBC Panorama Report to be broadcast later tonight, follows several patients in persistent vegetative state. It highlights the cases of two Canadian patients, Scott Routley and Steven Graham, who, whilst appearing to be in persistent vegetative state (PVS) have been able to answer questions, and even to show that they have laid down new memories.…
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Growing Babies: The Ethics of Artificial Wombs
Earlier this year, scientists published a study that detailed the successful use of an artificial uterus to bring shark embryos to term. Once ‘birthed’ the shark pups showed no detrimental effects as a result of having gone through development in an artificial setting. Research such as this ignites interest in the possibility of creating artificial…
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The ethics of a chemical break-up
UPDATE: AUDIO NOW AVAILABLE HERE. Forthcoming talk: If I could just stop loving you: Anti-love biotechnology and the ethics of a chemical break-up Date & Time: 30th Nov 2012 4:00pm-5:30pm Description: Abstract: “Love hurts” – as the saying goes – and a certain degree of pain and difficulty in intimate relationships is unavoidable. Sometimes it may…
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Obama’s debt to Rawls?
Anyone who doubts the ability of philosophy to influence ‘real world’ politics should study the text of Obama’s victory address. They should then read John Rawls’s Political Liberalism. (That’s if they haven’t done so already, of course.) There are points in the speech at which Obama’s remarks parallel certain key Rawlsian theses in such a…
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HARMFUL HEADLINES: The ethics of reporting health findings
Sabrina Stewart is a student at Dartmouth College who is visiting the Uehiro Centre this term. Newspaper health sections yield many headlines and subsequent articles that do not accurately reflect the research publication that is being reported. One article, “Boozing after a heart attack could help you live longer, research reveals” discusses the finding that drinking after…
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Fifty shades: should BDSM become part of general sexual education?
“BDSM [Bondage, Discipline, Sadism, Masochism] might be mainstream now, but it has a new PR problem. I blame Christian Grey.” writes ‘sexual submissive’ Sophie Morgan in an article in the Guardian. I started reading E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey but didn’t get very far. It’s very badly written (guess that’s no longer a secret) and,…
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A Living Wage?
This week is Living Wage Week. The aim of this campaign is to encourage employers to pay their lowest paid employees a Living Wage – the amount necessary to meet the basic cost of living –rather than the legally required minimum wage. Currently, the minimum wage is £6.19 per hour, whereas outside London the Living…
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Do we want “genetically modified children”? Yes, of course!
The agency that regulates fertility treatment and embryo research in the UK, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), has asked for public views on two possible new forms of fertility treatment that promise to prevent the transmission of mitochondrial diseases to children. These diseases can be extremely severe, leading to (among other things) diabetes,…
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Four More Years . . .
Today we learnt that Barack Obama will be the President of the USA for another term. Much of the debate preceding Obama’s election victory focused on how each presidential candidate planned to resuscitate the American economy. Time will tell whether Obama will succeed in this area, and we will be able to debate the merits of…