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Killing by praying
Dale and Leilani Neumann are Pentecostal Christians. Their 11 year old daughter, Kara, fell ill. In fact she had (undiagnosed) diabetes. Her parents refused to obtain medical help. Instead they prayed. ‘Kara’s father testified that death was never on their minds. He testified that he knew Kara was sick but was “never to the alarm…
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State versus parental authority: morality or efficiency?
In a previous post, I touched briefly upon the role of the state in child-rearing. The state takes on a very specific set of roles, while parents fulfil others. The rhetoric surrounding parental rights or government power seem to imply that we’ve reached this division after careful consideration of the rights of all parties, based…
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Introversion and Well-Being
A recent British study has suggested that the exhibition of certain personality dispositions in youth can serve as reliable indicators of well-being in later life . The data obtained in this longitudinal study suggest that subjects who score highly for extroversion in youth tend to report greater well-being in later life. In contrast, those who…
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The Parable of the Islands
Michael Gove, the UK Education Secretary, recently proposed that 5-7-year-olds in British primary schools should be taught about the ‘concept of a nation’. This proposal, along with several others, it seems, is to be dropped. So unfortunately I will not be able to send the following story to Mr Gove for possible inclusion in his…
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Pak-Hang Wong on “Virtuous Climate Making? Towards a Virtue-Theoretic Approach to Geoengineering”
In the final Uehiro Seminar of Trinity Term, Pak-Hang Wong offered a novel approach to the ethics of geoengineering. He argues that if we view geoengineering as a large socio-technical system (LTS), which he asserts we should, then traditional approaches to the ethics of geoengineering that focus on intentions and outcomes are inadequate.
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Does Madeleine McCann deserve never to be found?
by Rebecca Roache Follow Rebecca on Twitter Several news sources reported today that Scotland Yard has launched a formal investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, following the emergence of ‘new evidence and new theories’. Madeleine disappeared from her family’s holiday apartment in Portugal in 2007, a few days before her fourth birthday. Her parents had left…
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Caught in the genetic social network
Direct to consumer genetic testing is growing rapidly; 23andMe has hired Andy Page to help the company scale – especially since it aims at having one million members by the end at the year (currently, since its launch, 23andMe has tested over 180,000 people around the world). While most ethics discussion about personal genomics has…
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Are You A Fox or A Hedgehog?
by David Edmonds Follow David on twitter @DavidEdmonds100 Are you a Fox or a Hedgehog? In practical ethics, far better to be a hedgehog. Isaiah Berlin drew a famous distinction when discussing great writers and thinkers of the past. The hedgehog knew one big thing. The fox knew many things.
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Government is good for you so do what you’re told!
We are discussing Huemer’s argument against political authority, where political authority is the special right of government to command and coerce what other agent’s may not and the special duty to obey what government commands. A number of commentators here have responded to earlier parts of Huemer’s argument against political authority by citing benefits of…
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Podcast: The Ethics of Infant Male Circumcision
In this talk (audio- MP3 and video -youtube) , Brian D. Earp argues that the non-therapeutic circumcision of infant males is unethical, whether it is performed for reasons of obtaining possible future health benefits, for reasons of cultural transmission, or for reasons of perceived religious obligation. He begins with the premise that it should be considered…