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So what if I would agree?
Previous posts in this line here and here The next justification of political authority that Michael Huemer considers in his book The Problem of Political Authority is what is called Hypothetical Social Contract Theory. The broad idea is that what justifies political authority is that you would agree to government coercion were you not the…
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Is it rational to have children?
Laurie Paul’s fascinating paper on the rationality of choosing to have children has already received a great deal of attention in the blogosphere. Perhaps everything worth saying has already been said. But I wanted to point to some evidence that we ought not place the kind of weight on people’s experiences, in the context of assessing…
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The Cultural Cost of Placebo
A recent poll says that nearly all General Practitioners in the UK have given placebos to at least one of their patients. The story can be seen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21834440 Everyone loves placebos. If you are a scientist, placebo shows an incredible feat of the human body, and interesting interactions between our psychology and the biology…
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Julian Savulescu and Robert Sparrow debate the ethics of designer babies
Last year, Julian Savulescu of the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics here at Oxford debated Robert Sparrow of Monash University on the issue of using techniques like embryo selection to ensure one’s children have the best life possible. Savulescu has notably defended not only the permissibility but the obligation to select for the best children,…
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Announcement: Journal of Medical Ethics – Special Issue on Circumcision
The Ethics of Male Circumcision by Brian D. Earp. Special Issue Edited by Julian Savulescu, Brian D. Earp and Bennett Foddy. The Journal of Medical Ethics is pleased to announce the forthcoming release of a Special Issue, ‘The Ethics of Male Circumcision’ — to be published in full in the coming days. Selected papers have already…
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Male Circumcision and the Enhancement Debate: Harm Reduction, Not Prohibition
This blog is a brief response to ‘Out of Step: Fatal Flaws in the Latest AAP Policy Report on Neonatal Circumcision’ by Steven Svoboda and Robert Van Howe, and the AAP Task Force on Circumcision’s Response. This is part of a special issue summarised by Brian Earp. Around one third of men worldwide are circumcised. It…
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Sponsoring student adventures, with added charity.
Last weekend’s work was greatly enlivened for me by keeping track of the updates for Trinity Jailbreak. The challenge: 37 student teams had 36 hours to get as far from Trinity College Dublin as possible, without spending any money. They were, however, allowed to blag, persuade, and get corporate sponsorship to aid their “getaways”. Pre-contest,…
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A reply to ‘Facebook: You are your ‘Likes”
Yesterday, Charles Foster discussed the recent study showing that Facebook ‘Likes’ can be plugged into an algorithm to predict things about people – things about their demographics, their habits and their personalities – that they didn’t explicitly disclose. Charles argued that, even though the individual ‘Likes’ were voluntarily published, to use an algorithm to generate…
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Brief announcement: Interview about ‘love drugs’ on “Q” with Jian Ghomeshi
By Brian D. Earp Interview announcement This is a brief note to alert the readers of Practical Ethics that research by myself, Anders Sandberg, and Julian Savulescu on the potential therapeutic uses of “love drugs” and “anti-love drugs” has recently been featured in an interview for the national Canadian broadcast program, “Q” with Jian Ghomeshi…
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Kyle Edwards: Methods of Legitimation: How Ethics Committees Decide Which Reasons Count (Podcast)
The most recent St. Cross Ethics Seminar took place on February 28th, 2013. Kyle Edwards, who is currently a DPhil Candidate at Oxford, led it. Her informative and compelling presentation was entitled “Methods of Legitimation: How Ethics Committees Decide Which Reasons Count.” (A podcast of the seminar is located here: http://media.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/uehiro/HT13STX_KE.mp3)