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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, while Sparrow has been more critical of enhancement via embryo selection.  The transcript of their debate is now available, and their exchange helps clarify a key source of disagreement between proponents and critics of embryo selection – whether parents should be maximizing their children’s well-being, or simply giving them a good enough life.  At its core, the debate is less about the intricacies of new technologies like preimplantation genetic diagnostics (PGD) and more about the ethics of parenting.  I’ll summarize some of the key points of the debate below, but I encourage readers to have a look at the transcript to get a sense for how the dialectic plays out as well as how each interlocutor deals with a wide array of objections.Read More »Julian Savulescu and Robert Sparrow debate the ethics of designer babies

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,… Read More »Sponsoring student adventures, with added charity.

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 (airing on National Public Radio in the United States).

Here is a link to the interview.

Readers may also be interested in checking out a new website, “Love in the Age of Enhancement” which collects the various academic essays, magazine articles, and media coverage of these arguments concerning the neuroenhancement of human relationships.

Read More »Brief announcement: Interview about ‘love drugs’ on “Q” with Jian Ghomeshi

Sexy Indian Costumes on Sale!

Picture taken from California Costume Collection, Inc.

 

I’ve been to Cologne recently, one of Germany’s main Carnival cities. In the window of a shop I passed, I saw some residues of the just ended Carnival season for sale – amongst other things, a Native American costume. Like many others of the sort, it consisted of a brown faux suede suit, a colourful feather hair decoration, and a little fake axe. And – not to my surprise – it showed far more skin that it concealed. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture. However, “Indian” Carnival and Halloween costumes like that can be found all over the internet, may it be in the (sadly unavoidable) “sexy” women’s version like the one I saw, or in the male “warrior / chief” version.

Read More »Sexy Indian Costumes on Sale!

Well, he did make the trains run on time

 

Well, they say of Mussolini, at least he made the trains run on time.

Actually, that’s disputed, but that’s by-the-by.  While watching the telly, I was struck by a remark of Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, on the resignation of the leader of Scotland’s Roman Catholic community, Cardinal Keith O’Brien following allegation of sexual misconduct.  “It would be a great pity if a lifetime of positive work was lost from comment in the circumstances of his resignation”, said Salmond.Read More »Well, he did make the trains run on time

Why advertising gay conversion therapy is like advertising make-up

by Rebecca Roache

Various news sources—including The Huffington Post, Gay Star News, and the London Evening Standard—are reporting a High Court case in which a campaigner for gay conversion therapy is fighting Transport for London (TfL) over a ban on its bus adverts that suggest that homosexuality can be ‘cured’.

Dr Mike Davidson is head of Core Issues Trust which, according to its website, is ‘a non-profit Christian ministry supporting men and women with homosexual issues who voluntarily seek change in sexual preference and expression’. Davidson, who is married with children, insists that his own gay feelings were removed by therapy. He told The Huffington Post that he had homosexual feelings ‘from the moment [he] opened [his] eyes’. Even so, he believes that ‘gay’ is a ‘late twentieth century political construction’ that people can reject. His adverts read, ‘Not gay! Ex-gay, post-gay and proud. Get over it!’—a response to similar posters by lesbian, gay and bisexual charity Stonewall which read, ‘Some people are gay. Get over it!’ Davidson’s adverts have been deemed ‘offensive to gays’ by London Mayor Boris Johnson, who is also head of TfL.Read More »Why advertising gay conversion therapy is like advertising make-up

Wall St, Charity, and Saving the World

Today I started writing for Quartz magazine, the Atlantic’s new on-line business magazine.  My first article is on saving the world by funding charities rather than working for charities – a topic that I’ve written on previously for the Practical Ethics blog. The basic idea is that, often, one can do more good by choosing to fund not-for-profits rather than work for them directly – and that a good way to fund them is to ‘earn to give’, that is to deliberately take a high-earning career and donate a large chunk of one’s earnings to the best causes.

Read More »Wall St, Charity, and Saving the World

The feminist case for gun rights

There has, in recent weeks, been a relatively vigorous debate over gun control in the US.  This was undoubtedly precipitated by the horrendous Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, in which 20 children and 6 adults were gunned down, but the issue has long been simmering in a country alternately outraged by gun violence and resistant to limitations on the people’s ability to keep and bear arms.  There are a number of issues here, but perhaps the most general (and ethically interesting) is whether, in modern societies, the state should significantly restrict the ability of citizens to purchase and carry firearms.  The New York Times’ blog The Stone ran a nice series of philosophical commentaries on guns; however, perhaps unsurprisingly given the typical liberalism of philosophers, all were to varying degrees in favor of gun control (or even prohibition) and not sympathetic to gun rights.   I imagine those in the UK will be similarly disposed, but in this debate it is important to look for the strongest possible cases on both sides.  For my own part, I find the most compelling defense of strong gun rights to come not from the need to check government or general libertarian freedom, but feminism.  This may be somewhat surprising given feminism’s typical association with liberal causes, but on consideration it is not so strange. Read More »The feminist case for gun rights

Your password will probably be hacked soon, and how to (actually) solve the problem

By Brian D. Earp

See Brian’s most recent previous post by clicking here.

See all of Brian’s previous posts by clicking here.

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Your password will probably be hacked soon, and how to (actually) solve the problem

Smithsonian Magazine recently reported: “Your Password Will Probably Be Hacked Soon” and delivered a troubling quote from Ars Technica:

The ancient art of password cracking has advanced further in the past five years than it did in the previous several decades combined. At the same time, the dangerous practice of password reuse has surged. The result: security provided by the average password in 2012 has never been weaker.

After the Twitter accounts for Burger King as well as Chrysler’s Jeep were recently broken into, Twitter apparently issued some advice to the effect that people should be smarter about their password security practices. So: use lots of letters and numbers, passwords should be 10-digits or longer, use a different password for every one of your online accounts and so on.

But this is nuts. Does Twitter know anything about how human beings actually work? Why do you think people reuse their passwords for multiple sites? Why do you think people select easy-to-remember (and easy-to-discover) factoids from their childhoods as answers to security questions?

Read More »Your password will probably be hacked soon, and how to (actually) solve the problem