Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics: Recent Episodes
Oxford University
A selection of seminars and special lectures on wide-ranging topics relating to practical ethics. The Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics was established in 2002 with the support of the Uehiro Foundation on Ethics and Education of Japan. It is an integral part of the philosophy faculty of Oxford University, one of the great centres of academic excellence in philosophical ethics.
A St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, recorded at St Cross College, Oxford in February 2024. Demandingness objections have become a stock argument in ethics claiming that single moral demands or entire moral theories must be given up or altered if they ask too much of agents. But can we clearly distinguish an acceptable level of demandingness from one that is too high? I argue that demandingness objections inevitably fail to make that distinction without borderline cases because they are sorites-susceptible. First, I show that the heap paradox applies to demandingness objections and the expression “overdemanding” because two conditions are met. There is an ordering of values on one dimension decisive for the expression’s application: the cost to the agent. Also, the expression “overdemanding” is tolerant, because the difference between two neighbouring levels of demandingness is so small that it does not allow us to say that this is the difference between an acceptable level of demandingness and critical overdemandingness. Second, I discuss attempts to overcome or bypass the vagueness of demandingness objections. I will argue that these strategies are not very promising and that we should rather embrace the vagueness.
Professor Predrag uses a comparison of money and morality to explore the mutual relationship between morality and personality. To clarify the tension that exists between morality and personality, Cicovacki opens his talk by comparing the development of the money economy and morality. Money and morality play a similar function with respect to social interactions: they make most diverse things commensurable and impose the rules that should have universal validity, regardless of to whom they apply. Personality is characterized by the uniqueness of each individual, as well as by a need for continuous development. To close an unhealthy gap between morality and personality, morality should be conceived not on the model of the money economy, but by becoming more sensitive to who we are and in what kind of situations we find ourselves. Cicovacki argues that we should favor a maximalist rather than a minimalist conception of morality: the one that urges us to become as good human beings as we can, rather than to focus merely on enabling acceptable social intercourse. The questions that such a conception of morality should ask are: 1. What is the moral cost of being who you are? and 2. What is the moral cost of not being who you are?
Professor Mark Coeckelbergh considers whether AI poses a risk for democracy n this St Cross Special Ethics Seminar Cases such as Cambridge Analytica or the use of AI by the Chinese government suggest that the use of artificial intelligence (AI) creates some risks for democracy. This paper analyzes these risks by using the concept of epistemic agency and argues that the use of AI risks to influence the formation and the revision of beliefs in at least three ways: the direct, intended manipulation of beliefs, the type of knowledge offered, and the creation and maintenance of epistemic bubbles. It then suggests some implications for research and policy.
In the first St Cross Special Ethics Seminar of 2023, Dr Larry Lengbeyer explores 'shallow cognizing' as a form of self-control Shallow cognizing is a familiar but overlooked practice of self-control, typically initiated without conscious intention, that enables us to short-circuit potential upwellings of emotion and desire in ourselves. We will consider the range of contexts in which the practice is manifest, speculate about its roots in the compartmentalized structure of our cognitive systems, ponder its benefits and costs (its uses and misuses), and contemplate its relation to virtue. We will then continue in this exploratory vein by asking whether taking account of this neglected phenomenon might improve our understanding of issues in practical ethics, such as duties of doctors to obtain informed consent from patients, and how to balance free expression with proper care for others' sensibilities, in the classroom and perhaps elsewhere.
In this St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, Dr Edmond Awad discusses his project, the Moral Machine, an internet-based game exploring the ethical dilemmas faced by driverless cars. I describe the Moral Machine, an internet-based serious game exploring the many-dimensional ethical dilemmas faced by autonomous vehicles. The game enabled us to gather 40 million decisions from 3 million people in 200 countries/territories. I report the various preferences estimated from this data, and document interpersonal differences in the strength of these preferences. I also report cross-cultural ethical variation and uncover major clusters of countries exhibiting substantial differences along key moral preferences. These differences correlate with modern institutions, but also with deep cultural traits. I discuss how these three layers of preferences can help progress toward global, harmonious, and socially acceptable principles for machine ethics. Finally, I describe other follow up work that build on this project.
In this St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, Dr Edmond Awad discusses his project, the Moral Machine, an internet-based game exploring the ethical dilemmas faced by driverless cars. I describe the Moral Machine, an internet-based serious game exploring the many-dimensional ethical dilemmas faced by autonomous vehicles. The game enabled us to gather 40 million decisions from 3 million people in 200 countries/territories. I report the various preferences estimated from this data, and document interpersonal differences in the strength of these preferences. I also report cross-cultural ethical variation and uncover major clusters of countries exhibiting substantial differences along key moral preferences. These differences correlate with modern institutions, but also with deep cultural traits. I discuss how these three layers of preferences can help progress toward global, harmonious, and socially acceptable principles for machine ethics. Finally, I describe other follow up work that build on this project.
In this St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, Professor Stephen Clarke the role of hope in patients undergoing major healthcare procedures, and how it relates to decision-making in situations of risk and uncertainty. It is widely supposed that it is important to imbue patients undergoing medical procedures with a sense of hope. But why is hope so important in healthcare, if indeed it is? We examine the answers that are currently on offer and show that none do enough to properly explain the importance that is often attributed to hope in healthcare. We then identify a hitherto unrecognised reason for supposing that it is important to imbue patients undergoing significant medical procedures with hope, which draws on prospect theory, Kahneman and Tversky’s hugely influential descriptive theory about decision making in situations of risk and uncertainty. We also consider some concerns about patient consent and the potential manipulation of patients, that are raised by our account. We then consider some complications for the account raised by religious sources of hope, which are commonly drawn on by patients undergoing major healthcare procedures.
In this St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, Dr Brian Earp argues that all medically unnecessary genital cutting of non-consenting persons should be opposed on moral and legal grounds. Defenders of male circumcision increasingly argue that female ‘circumcision’ (ritual cutting of the clitoral hood or labia) should be legally allowed in Western liberal democracies even when non-consensual. In a recent article, Richard Shweder (2021) gives perhaps the most persuasive articulation of this argument to have so far appeared in the literature. In my own work, I argue that no person should be subjected to medically unnecessary genital cutting of any kind without their own informed consent, regardless of the sex characteristics with which they were born or the religious or cultural background of their parents. Professor Shweder and I agree that Western law and policy on child genital cutting is currently beset with cultural, religious, and sex-based double-standards. We disagree about what should be done about this. In this talk, I argue that ‘legalizing’ childhood female genital cutting so as to bring it into line with current treatment of childhood male genital cutting is not an acceptable solution to these problems. Instead, all medically unnecessary genital cutting of non-consenting persons should be opposed equally on moral and legal grounds and discouraged by all appropriate means.
In this St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, Dr Sarah Chan outlines some risks arising from the deliberate infection of human participants to infectious agents for research purposes In this St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, Dr Sarah Chan explores three key areas of risk in ‘challenge trials’ – the deliberate infection of human participants to infectious agents as a tool for vaccine development and improving our knowledge of disease biology. Dr Chan explores a) whether some forms of challenge trials cannot be ethically justified; b) why stratifying populations for vaccine allocation by risk profile can result in unjust risk distribution; and c) how comparing these cases and the evaluation of relative risk reveals flaws in approach to pandemic public health.
Marcello Ienca discusses moral and legal issues surrounding the decoding – ‘mind reading’ - of brain activity In the 1990s, following rapid advances in the use of technologies such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), an ethical debate arose around the concept of 'mind reading': the possibility of decoding a person's mental states (including their conscious experience) based on quantitative measurements of their brain activity. This debate concerned the moral and legal status of information about mental states (mental information) and the definition of normative principles to justify the collection and processing of such information. However, the poor replicability of fMRI-based studies combined with conceptual clarifications within the philosophy of mind (such as Dennett's vehicle-content distinction) showed that this debate rested on weak empirical and conceptual grounds. As a result, the interest of the bioethics/neuroethics community waned. A couple of decades later, however, the wide availability of brain data outside the clinical setting combined with the use of artificial intelligence models to process and decode such data (through a process known as 'reverse inference') make the ethical debate on mind-reading topical again, albeit on a different conceptual ground. In addition, AI approaches such as affective computing and natural language processing have shown the possibility of inferring a person's mental states also from non-neural data (e.g., social media). This presentation will discuss the moral and legal status of mental information and the conditions for legitimate access to and alteration of such information. In particular, it will examine the concepts of ‘mental privacy’ and ‘cognitive liberty’ and defend the thesis that every person should enjoy a right to mental self-determination. This includes both the negative freedom from coercive or otherwise non-voluntary access to one's mental sphere and the positive freedom of the individual to modify their mental states and processes (e.g. through cognitive or affective enhancement).
Professor Gopal Sreenivasan delivers a New St Cross Special Ethics Seminar on the topic of Informed Consent. This talk develops a novel argument to show that prospective research subjects can validly consent to participate in a study without understanding (most of) the content of the required disclosure. Its point of departure is the right subjects standardly have to waive (most of) the investigator’s duty to disclose. Things get worse for autonomy based defences of informed consent because this right to waive is very well grounded in an individual’s autonomy.
A New St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, with Professor Maureen Kelley. Much of global health research occurs against the backdrop of severe, intersectional and structural vulnerabilities, where susceptibility to disease and early death are driven by poverty, and related factors such as political conflict and climate change. Global health research priorities over the last two decades have been shaped by a small number of high income country institutions, with political commitments informed largely by the ‘global burden of disease’ model. On this model, international research has primarily targeted infectious diseases and other causes of high morbidity and premature, preventable mortality, but has ignored the structural determinants of those diseases. An unintended consequence is that researchers at the frontlines of data collection and interaction with participants and communities come face-to-face with the daily suffering of participants and family members. They often face heart-rending dilemmas in responding to complex health, social, and economic needs that far outstrip the resources and expertise of most research projects or clinical trials. In this presentation, I will share findings from a longitudinal research ethics study, where local ethics teams were embedded within ongoing clinical and social science research studies in contexts of severe poverty, food shortages, droughts and flooding, gender-based violence and political conflict—typical of many global health research sites. Based on our empirical ethics findings, including experiences of research participants, community members and researchers, I will offer critical reflections on the limitations of current accounts of researcher responsibility (ancillary care or duty of care), and suggest we rethink the ways that current global health research institutions and funders engage the underlying structural drivers of disease and suffering.
A New St Cross Special Ethics Seminar with Dr David M Lyreskog. It is no exaggeration that the philosophical and ethical dimensions of age-related cognitive decline and dementia have been discussed for millennia, nor is it without reason. To this day, we struggle with understanding and dealing with the conceptual and ethical complexities which these conditions give rise to. And yet, we keep encountering new problems, challenging us to again rethink our relationship with neurodegenerative disease, cognitive impairment, and personhood. In this presentation I highlight phenomena in dementia care, prevention, and treatment, which have recently gained attention in dementia care and in the literature of the same – including relational identity adoption, paradoxical lucidity, and transformative experience – and discuss their ethical, philosophical, and practical implications. I argue that, to tackle the problems that arise, we may need to adjust our way of thinking about the human mind, to better make sense of what is at stake in dementia care and to deal with the consequences. I suggest that a framework allowing a spacial and temporal “plasticity of the mind” of sorts may help us in this endeavour, and inform our decision-making in care, prevention and treatment of dementia. I also address some of the potential issues with adopting such an approach, and discuss how to move on from here.
Professor Morten L. Kringlebach explains how recent advances in neuroimaging offer an insight into hedonia and eudaimonia, and draws out implications for neuropsychiatric disorders. Recent advances in whole-brain modelling have helped stratify the heterogeneity of anhedonia across neuropsychiatric disorders, and the key underlying components of the pleasure network. I will show how modelling of neuroimaging data from diverse hedonic routes such as psychedelics, meditation and music could potentially offer new insights not only into hedonia but potentially also eudaimonia. To this end, we have recently demonstrated the hierarchical organisation of consciousness in over thousand people, and the crucial role played by rare long-range exceptions to a fundamental exponential distance rule of brain connectivity. These processes are controlling the information cascade in the turbulent-like brain dynamics necessary for optimal orchestration of behaviour necessary a life well-lived. This has direct implications for getting a handle on eudaimonia and well-being which are difficult to study empirically, as well as the diagnosis and treatment of anhedonia in neuropsychiatric disorders.
Professor Morten L. Kringlebach (Aarhus University, Denmark; University of Oxford)
THE NEW ST CROSS SPECIAL ETHICS SEMINARS ARE JOINTLY ARRANGED BY THE OXFORD UEHIRO CENTRE AND THE WELLCOME CENTRE FOR ETHICS AND HUMANITIES (WEH).
MT20 New St Cross Special Ethics Seminar with Assoc. Professor Jennifer Hawkins Valid informed consent to treatment requires that the person giving consent have decision-making capacity or (what amounts to the same thing) must be mentally competent. To date the most influential model for both conceptualizing what capacity is, and for assessing it clinically, is the “four abilities model” developed by Thomas Grisso and Paul Appelbaum. Despite its popularity, however, this framework is flawed. It not infrequently delivers the wrong verdict in certain kinds of cases involving strong emotions and/or problematic values. Given that we want to (a) avoid objectionable forms of paternalism (b) avoid labeling as incompetent those who simply have unusual values and (c) avoid assuming that mental illness entails lack of capacity, it can seem as if there is no good solution to the problems posed by these cases. Nonetheless, there is a way we can proceed while avoiding these moral pitfalls. In this paper I first offer a better way of conceptualizing what it is we are trying to determine in capacity assessments, and then sketch an alternative way to assess capacity that avoids the moral pitfalls while yielding better, more plausible results in the problem cases.
Alberto Giubilini and David Jones trade views and argue each other's position on conscientious objection in healthcare In this unusual online debate, Alberto Guibilini (Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics) and David Jones (The Anscombe Bioethics Centre) adopt each other's position on conscientious objection, arguing for the opposing view in an attempt to explore not only the subject, but the very nature of disagreement and discussion.
Recording of the New St Cross Special Ethics Seminar on surrogate decision-making after severe brain injury. Patients with ‘covert awareness’ may continue to have values and an authentic sense of self, which may differ from their past values and wishes, despite lacking decision-making capacity in the present. Accordingly, surrogate decision-makers should make decisions based on how the patient is likely to experience their condition in the present, rather than their past wishes and values.
In this New St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, Professor Arthur Schafer outlines the current contours of the Canadian euthanasia debate. In June of 2016 the Canadian Parliament passed legislation (Bill-14) legalizing MAiD: medical assistance in dying. Subject to various restrictions, both mercy killing and medically assisted suicide are now legal in Canada. The contours of the Canadian euthanasia debate will be described, with special focus on the ethical issues that remain most controversial. Two salient Canadian Supreme Court decisions will be analysed: Rodriguez (1993) and Carter (2015), as well as more recent constitutional challenges. The presentation will conclude by outlining the further legal changes that are likely to (or that should) occur in the reasonably near future.
In this talk, Neil Armstrong uses ethnographic material of NHS mental healthcare to raise some questions about autonomy, risk and personal and institutional responsibility. Neil Armstrong's research investigates mental health. He is particularly interested in how the institutional setting shapes so much of mental healthcare. His research aims to find ways that we might improve healthcare institutions rather than just focussing on developing new healthcare interventions. He is also concerned with methodological questions: how anthropological work can be of clinical value, and how best to produce anthropological knowledge in an inclusive way.
In this talk, Prof. Peter Sandøe argues that, from an ethical viewpoint, gene editing is the best solution to produce hornless cattle. There are, however, regulatory hurdles. Presented at the workshop 'Gene Editing and Animal Welfare, 19 Nov. 2019, Oxford - organised by the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, funded by the Society for Applied Philosophy.
Respecting patients' autonomy is increasingly important in the digital age, yet researchers have raised concerns over the barriers of access to medical data useful for data-driven medical research. Respecting patients and their autonomy, a primary obligation of medical professionals, is increasingly important in the digital age. Yet biomedical and bioethical researchers have raised concerns over the barriers of access to previously stored medical data useful for epidemiological and other data-driven medical research. These barriers were introduced to protect the privacy and autonomy of patients but have had the unintended consequence of widespread and often severe selection bias, undermining research quality. This talk introduces novel advances in computer science and cryptography, notably blockchain, as a proposed solution to the dilemmas raised by consent requirements to retroactive epidemiological research. It describes how these technologies can be used to reduce or eliminate data breach risks as well as radically enhance control over medical data for those who possess it. Ethics and the law of most nations allow for consent waivers for research with minimal risk. If implemented properly, blockchain- and smart-contract based tools could reduce the privacy risk of most, if not all, records-based research to minimal, thus potentially freeing up the legislative space for a large-scale facilitation of records-based research. Importantly, the technology described in this talk could also be used to radically enhance the control that individuals and other data owners have over their pseudonymous medical data. These insights are critical to the increasingly important policy issues concerning access to, and control over, biomedical data. These affordances of novel technologies should be widely discussed in the medical and policy professions to ensure that they are used for the furtherance of ethical principles. This talk aims to open preliminary discussion on these topics.
Professor Julian Savulescu and Dr Katrien Devolder discuss the use of genetic testing to select which children to bring into the world. Should we use genetic testing to choose which children to bring into the world, and if so, how should we choose? Is it acceptable to choose a deaf child? Should we choose our children on the basis of non-disease traits such as intelligence or fitness, if we can? Does genetic selection put too much pressure on prospective parents? In this interview with Katrien Devolder (Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics), Professor Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, defends his controversial view that we should select those children, from among the children we could have, that will have the best chance at the best life.
In November 2018, a Chinese scientist announced the birth of the world’s first gene-edited babies and sparked outrage across the world. Professor Nie considers how China's complex socio-ethical approach paved the way for this controversial experiment. Among numerous ethical issues, editing heritable germline genomes of otherwise healthy embryos for natural resistance to HIV constitutes an effort of positive eugenics, i.e. not treating disease but enhancing genetic features. This paradigm case of scientific misconduct has its roots in the widespread practice of yousheng (eugenics) in China and in the nation’s pursuit of science superpower status. This talk will offer a (brief) socio-ethical inquiry into how the ideologies of nationalism, sinicised social Darwinism and scientism have shaped the Chinese authoritarian model of human genetic engineering in a global context.
Professor Seumas Miller defines fake news, hate speech and propaganda, discusses the relationship between social media and political propaganda. In this article I provide definitions of fake news, hate speech and propaganda, respectively. These phenomenon are corruptive of the epistemic (i.e. knowledge-aiming) norms, e.g. to tell the truth. I also elaborate the right to freedom of communication and its relation both to censoring propaganda and to the role of epistemic institutions, such as a free and independent press and universities. Finally, I discuss the general problem of countering political propaganda in cyberspace and argue, firstly, that there is an important role for epistemic institutions in this regard and, secondly, that social media platforms need to be redesigned since, as they stand and notwithstanding the benefits which they provide, they are a large part of the problem.
In this special lecture, Professor Mitt Regan discusses the latest research in moral perception and judgment, and the potential implications of this research for ethics education in general and military ethics training in particular. In November 2005, an improvised explosive device destroyed a vehicle in a US Marine Corps convoy, killing one man and seriously injuring another. Less than a minute later, Sergeant Frank Wuterich saw five unarmed Iraqi men standing by a car about fifteen meters away. The men were unarmed, and made no move to advance toward him, nor did they exhibit any hostile behavior. Wuterich later described what happened next: “I took a knee in the road and fired. Engaging was the only choice. The threat had to be neutralized.” The five men whom Wuterich killed were four college students and a driver they had hired to take them to class. The white car in effect was a taxi, although not marked as such. No weapons were found in the car.
On one account, Wuterich’s moral failure was that he allowed himself to be overcome by emotions of fear and anger that were untempered by reason. This account is consistent with an influential understanding of moral behavior as a product of higher-order cognitive processes that distinguish us from other creatures. As humans, we can be held responsible for failing to use reason to bring our emotions under control.
On another account, however, Wuterich’s moral failure was that he responded to the situation with the wrong kind of emotion. This account posits that emotions have a cognitive component, and that individuals can be held responsible for the kinds of emotional responses that they habitually exhibit in specific situations. This lecture will discuss research in neuroscience and psychology that provides support for this account by emphasizing the importance of affective computational processes that are closely associated with moral perception and judgment. It will then discuss the potential implications of this research for ethics education in general and military ethics training in particular.
In this New St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, Professor Tony Coady argues that religion does not have an inherent tendency towards violence, including particularly war and terrorism. There is a widespread belief amounting almost to a cultural assumption in many influential circles that assigns to religion and religious difference an inherent tendency to violence. In this talk, Professor Coady highlights misleading implications and confusion between religious war and terrorism, particularly the ways in which causation and motivation of terrorist acts can be obscured by the concentration upon religious affiliation and rhetoric surrounding some terrorist perpetrators.
Professor Seumas Miller sets out how the use of lethal and coercive forces may erode moral character and cause moral injury. According to leading psychiatrist Jonathan Shay whose patients are US war veterans, “Moral injury is an essential part of any combat trauma that leads to lifelong psychological injury. Veterans can usually recover from horror, fear and grief so long as ”what’s right” has also not been violated”. The focus of this paper is on moral injury in both military combatants and police officers. The role of combatants and that of police officer both necessarily involve the use of harmful methods – paradigmatically, the use of lethal force in the case of combatants, the use of coercive force, deception and the like in the case of police officers - in the service of good ends, notably national self-defence and law enforcement, respectively. However, the use of these methods sets up a dangerous moral dynamic, including so-called dirty hands/dirty harry scenarios, and the possibility of the erosion of moral character - and, in some cases, moral injury.
Is 'gig work' exploitative and injust? In this New St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, Daniel Halliday examines the common concerns from an ethical perspective. Recent advances in communication economy have created new ways for consumers to access service labour. Those who own the platforms associated with these services typically do not employ their workers, but treat them as freelance or 'gig' workers. This has led to a popular complaint that gig work is exploitative or otherwise unjust, and that the platforms need to regulated so that their workers qualify as employees. Many people now boycott the platforms using gig work, or feel uncomfortable about using it. But it is not obvious what the connection is between gig work and injustice or exploitation per se. After all, gig work has always been around in many other forms, and much of it compares favourably with employment in firms. This is not to dismiss the concern that many have with particular kinds of gig work, only to observe that the problem is complicated and calls for more detailed moral theorizing. At bottom, what's needed is a proper theory of what the difference between employment and freelance/gig work is supposed to be, and what moral purpose it serves. This talk will aim to make some progress in this direction.
In this New St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, Simukai Chigudu examines the humanitarian politics of responding to the most catastrophic cholera outbreak in African history. The paper demonstrates how humanitarian relief operations are riven by competing claims to leadership, authority and legitimacy but often converge on the ineluctable logic of saving lives - 'the salvation agenda'. Nevertheless, the paper contends that the exigency of saving lives in this case did not, and could not, address the background political and socio-economic conditions that led to the epidemic. Thus, the paper explores the possibilities, pitfalls and paradoxes of the salvation agenda and mounts a novel critique of how the humanitarian industrial complex operates in Africa.
How should members of a liberal democratic political community, open to value pluralism, decide bioethical issues that generate deep disagreement? Reasoned debate will not often generate an answer equally accepted to all participants and affected persons. One political means of reaching binding because authoritative decisions are majoritarian democratic institutions. Its core feature is proceduralism, the notion both that no rule is acceptable apart from a formal method, and that the acceptable method yields an acceptable rule; a rule is acceptable by virtue of being the outcome of an agreed-upon procedure. This approach is distinctly political and presupposes values such as legitimacy, order, stability, individual freedom, equality, and toleration of difference. Although not value neutral, it makes agreement and collective action possible in ways that bioethics oriented principally on pre-political ethical and moral values cannot. I demonstrate the usefulness of this approach with several examples.
Professor Steven Hoffman discusses legal mechanisms available for coordinating international responses to transnational problems, their prospects, and their challenges. Global legal epidemiology is the scientific study of international law as a factor in the cause, distribution, and promotion of outcomes around the world. It involves evaluating the effectiveness of international legal mechanisms on the basis of their quantifiable effects and drawing implications for the development of future treaties. Prof Hoffman draws on examples from public health, including tobacco control and antimicrobial resistance, identifying wider lessons for potential international treaties in other domains such as the environment, human rights and trade.
Fake news spread online is a clear danger to democratic politics. One aspect of that danger is obvious: it spreads misinformation. But other aspects, less often discussed, is that it also spreads confusion and undermines trust. In this talk, I will argue that it is this last aspect that captures the most pernicious effect of fake news and related propaganda. In particular, I’ll argue that its effectiveness is due in part to a curious blindness on the part of many users of social media: a kind of semantic blindness to the function of their online communicative acts. This blindness makes us not only vulnerable to manipulation to those with a better understanding of the semantic character of online communication, it indirectly undermines the political value of truth—or more exactly, the pursuit of truth, by diminishing confidence in the institutions that protect and encourage that value.
In this talk, I will argue that it is this last aspect that captures the most pernicious effect of fake news and related propaganda. In particular, I’ll argue that its effectiveness is due in part to a curious blindness on the part of many users of social media: a kind of semantic blindness to the function of their online communicative acts. This blindness makes us not only vulnerable to manipulation to those with a better understanding of the semantic character of online communication, it indirectly undermines the political value of truth—or more exactly, the pursuit of truth, by diminishing confidence in the institutions that protect and encourage that value.
In this OUC-WEH Joint Seminar, Russell Powell explores the concept of 'disease' Despite several decades of debate, the concept of disease remains hotly contested. The debate is typically cast as one between naturalism and normativism, with a hybrid view that combines elements of each staked out in between. In light of a number of widely discussed problems with existing accounts, some theorists argue that the concept of disease is beyond repair and thus recommend eliminating it in a wide range of practical medical contexts. Any attempt to reframe the ‘disease’ discussion should not only answer the more basic skeptical challenge, but it should also include a meta-methodological critique guided by our pragmatic expectations of what the disease concept ought to do given that medical diagnosis is woven into a complex network of healthcare institutions. In this paper, I attempt such a reframing, arguing that while prevailing accounts do not suffer from the particular defects that prominent critics have identified, they do suffer from other deficits—and this leads me to propose an amended hybrid view that not only places objectivist approaches to disease on stronger theoretical footing, but also satisfies the institutional-ethical desiderata of a concept of disease in human medicine. Nevertheless, I do not advocate a procrustean approach to “disease.” Instead, I recommend disease concept pluralism between medical and biological sciences in order to allow the concept to serve the different epistemic and institutional goals of these respective disciplines.
In this special lecture, Professor Matt Adler argues that social welfare function is a better methodology than cost-benefit analysis. Cost-benefit analysis has become the dominant methodology for assessing governmental policy. It has given rise to a vast academic literature, and is now officially required as part of the policymaking process in a number of governments. But cost-benefit analysis is flawed. It lacks firm normative foundations and is biased toward the rich. In this talk, I describe and defend a better approach: the social welfare function.
An inter-disciplinary collaboration on music, mortality and ethics. In 1824, ill and conscious of his own mortality, Franz Schubert incorporated a theme from one his earlier lieder “Der Tod und das Mädchen” (Death and the Maiden) into a new string quartet. Schubert’s emotive musical treatment of Claudius’ poem evokes the intense conflict between struggle and acceptance in the face of death. Medical professionals, especially those who work in palliative care, often have considerable experience of dying and death, and have a view about what would constitute a “good death”. But what does it mean for a death to be good? Is there an objective sense of what would count as a good death? What ethical weight should be placed on the importance of a good death?
Digitisation has entered the mobility arena. The car has evolved from a mechanical device into a “data producing embedded software platform”, and the internet is quickly linking the supply and demand to effectively fulfil our transport needs. Just like every industry that is confronted with digitisation, changes in mobility come faster than most traditional players can prepare for. Yet, with all unpredictability that comes along with disruption there are some fixed rules that one can prepare for. This makes mobility a real example of an industry in the midst of disruption. Carlo van de Weijer will highlight the most important future trends within mobility, from uberization to self driving vehicles, electrification and the impact on cities and society.
In this St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, Dr Tom Buller reflects on the causal relationship between movement goals and bodily awareness and challenges the idea that BMI-enabled movement and intentional bodily movement are equal actions. Individuals who have suffered a significant loss of motor function as a result, for example, of spinal cord injury are now able to regain a degree of sensorimotor control through the use of a brain-machine interface (BMI). A BMI decodes intact neural signals to extract voluntary motor commands that reflect the individual's movement intentions, and uses the processed signal to control an external device or the individual's own body. BMIs have been described as a (novel) way to 'translate thought into action.' Accordingly, we should regard BMI-enabled control of a robotic (or biological) limb and a standard case of intentional bodily movement as equally providing examples of action, for in both cases we have bodily movement that is causally related to the individual's belief, desires, and movement goals. This description can be challenged, however, by reflection upon the nature of the causal relationship and the role of bodily awareness. According to an influential line of thought, in order for an action to occur it is not sufficient that the intention merely causes the bodily movement; rather, action requires that the cause be of the 'right type' such that the movement is directly related and appropriately sensitive to the individual's intentions. The argument can be made, however, that present BMIs does not meet this condition: first, indirect BMIs that co-opt neural signals that are not intrinsically related to the intended movement lack this direct relationship; second, although direct BMIs that decode movement parameters possess this relationship, the lack of sensorimotor feedback suggests that the causal connection is 'deviant,' for the BMI serves as an unreliable causal intermediary.
In this St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, Anne Schwenkebecher discusses morally wrongful collective inaction and the problem of group-based ignorance. Some of the many things that we could do together with others but fail to do are morally wrongful inactions. While the list of our – individual and collective – non-actions is infinite, not everything that I (or we) fail to do is some form of inaction that is plausibly attributable to me (or us). ‘Collective inaction’ is the unintended failure of two or more agents to perform a collective action or produce a joint outcome where that action or outcome was collectively feasible and where the individual agents had group-based reasons to perform (or produce) it. In a second step we will discuss the role that ignorance plays in excusing morally wrongful collective inaction. We identify three different kinds of collective knowledge (common, pooled, or public) and corresponding types of group-based ignorance. We conclude by showing that inaction is excusable where ignorance sufficiently weakens agents’ group-based reasons for action.
A St Cross Special Ethics Seminar. Professor John-Stewart Gordon focusses on the question of whether moral experts must follow their own expert advice in order to remain experts. The lively topic of whether moral expertise and moral experts exist has been vividly discussed in recent contributions in ethics and, particularly, in bioethics. I hold the view that moral expertise exists and that some moral philosophers can be considered as moral experts in the full sense, who have moral expertise, while some are not. In this talk, however, I focus on the question of whether moral experts must follow their own expert advice in order to remain experts. This is an important issue because my analysis will respond to the vital question of whether a "moral expert" has (necessarily) both cognitive and practical skills in order to be considered a proper moral expert.
In this double seminar, Erasmus visitors Laurentiu Staicu and Emanuel-Mihail Socaciua discuss the rise of biomedical technology and some of the legal issues of moral bioenhancement 'The rise of postmedicine: some ethical concerns regarding biomedical technology'. Traditional medicine is bound by a moral duty to treat patients with compassion and to combine all medical interventions and treatments with caring as a fundamental attitude toward the patient. That's because the patient is seen as a person who needs help in recovering his or hers well-being, and any person should be treated with care and respect. However, what happens when patients are seen as medical puzzles which need to be solved rather than people in need? Can we treat a puzzle with care and compassion? The use of biomedical technology in medical treatments brought a spectacular increase in efficiency, but what are the moral costs of this increased efficiency? (Speaker: Laurentiu Staicu)
'How Drug Patents Might Lead to Disincentives for Moral Bioenhancement'. Biological moral enhancement (BME) and intellectual property (IP) might seem two entirely distinct areas. While BME refers to moral enhancement techniques which presuppose the use of biological means, the moral and legal debate surrounding IP tries to tackle the issue of whether ideas could/should be appropriated. In our paper we wish to link the two debates by exploring the consequences of the current IP and patent system in relation to the propensity of individuals to become morally enhanced through drugs or other pharmaceutical compounds. If artificial scarcity is one of the intended consequences of patents, we argue in favor of the following (weak) thesis: intellectual property rights provide noticeable disincentives for individual and voluntary moral bioenhancement.(Speaker: Emanuel-Mihail Socaciua)
In this talk, Eric Schwitzgebel considers whether it's acceptable to aim for peer-relative mediocrity. Most of us aim to be morally mediocre. That is, we aim to be about as morally good as our peers, not especially better, not especially worse. This mediocrity has two aspects. It is peer-relative rather than absolute, and it is middling rather than extreme. We look around us, notice how others are acting, then calibrate toward so-so. This is a somewhat bad way to be, but it's not a terribly bad way to be. We ought to be somewhat disappointed in ourselves. A possibly helpful comparison is being mediocre in other things you care about intensely: being a mediocre parent, a mediocre friend, a mediocre teacher, a mediocre philosopher.
In this episode, Brian Earp discusses the 'Reproducibility Project' and questions whether psychology is in crisis or not. In a much-discussed New York Times article, psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett claimed, “Psychology is not in crisis.” She was responding to the results of a large-scale initiative called the Reproducibility Project, published in Science magazine, which appeared to show that the results from over 60% of a sample of 100 psychology studies did not hold up when independent labs attempted to replicate them. In this talk, Earp addresses three issues: what did the Reproducibility Project really show?; is psychology in crisis or not?; and is there room for improvement?
In this talk, Professor John Paris asks "What is the historical meaning of "ordinary means" to sustain human life? And what has been the understanding for over 500 years of Catholic moral analysis of the obligation to sustain life?" Is it, as Pope John Paul II insisted in an allocution to a meeting of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life in March, 2000 that food and water must always be provided for patients in a persistent vegetative condition (PVS). Artificial nutrition and fluids, he writes, are not medical measure, but "natural" and therefor are "ordinary means" that are always morally required." PVS is a state of permanent unconsciousness. The record for maintaining a patient in that condition is 37 years, 111 days.
JOHN J. PARIS, S.J., PhD is the Michael P. Walsh Professor of Bioethics at Boston College. He has also been Professor of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA (1970-1990), Adjunct Professor of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA (1982-1994) and Clinical Professor of Family and Community Health, Tufts University, Boston, MA 1985-1998) and has been a visiting scholar at Yale Law School, The Kennedy Institute of Ethics, The University of Chicago Medical School, Georgetown University School of Medicine, The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and a visiting professor at the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University's School of Medicine. Fr. Paris served as consultant to the President's Commission for the Study of Ethics in Medicine, the United States Senate Committee on Aging, and the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. He has published over 190 articles on the area of law, medicine and ethics in publications as The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association, The Journal of Intensive Care Medicine, Pediatrics, Archives of Diseases of Childhood, The American Journal of Bioethics (AJOB), The Cambridge Quarterly of Health Care Ethics (CQ) and The Wall Street Journal. He is the Ethics Section Editor of The Journal of Perinatology. Fr. Paris served as a consultant and expert witness in many of the landmark biomedical cases including Quinlan, Baby L, Brophy, Jobes, Baby K and Gilgunn.
Professor Richman's talk combines differing theories of models of autism and moral responsibility, and explores the practical implications arising from these ideas. Although criteria for identifying autism have been established based on behavioral factors, researchers are still exploring and developing models to describe the cognitive and affective differences that lead to the known behaviors. Some of these models offer competing ways of understanding autism; some simply describe characteristics of autism. Significantly, these models tend to involve cognitive functions that are also cited in accounts of moral responsibility. This suggests that autism may be a reason not to blame an autistic person for some actions that transgress social, ethical, or legal expectations even when we would certainly blame a neurotypical person for the same action.
Whether to treat autism as exculpatory in any given circumstance appears to be influenced both by models of autism and by theories of moral responsibility. This talk will focus on a limited range of theories: autism as characterized in terms of executive function deficit, and moral responsibility based on access to appropriate reactive attitudes. In pursuing this particular combination of ideas, I do not intend to endorse them. The goal is, instead, to explore the implications of this combination of influential ideas about autism and about moral responsibility. These implications can be quite serious and practical for autists and those who interact directly with autists, as well as for broader communities as they attend to the fair, compassionate, and respectful treatment of increasing numbers of autistic adults.
In this public lecture, Dr William Casebeer discusses neuroscience, human agency and free will. The findings of neuroscience are often used to undermine traditional assumptions about the nature of human agency. In this talk, I sketch out a compatibilist position which leverages a neo-Aristotelian concept of “critical control distinctions”—rather than talking about whether agents freely will actions, a more consilient vocabulary asks whether agents were in control or out of control when the action was taken. A plausible neurobiological determinism can save what is worth saving about our traditional notions of responsibility and also points toward a twenty-first century research agenda which coevolves legal and moral norms about responsibility with neuroscientific critical control capacities.
Human Rights, Global Ethics and the Ordinary Virtues Professor Michael Ignatieff of the Central European University, delivers the 2016 Uehiro/Carnegie/Oxford lecture, titled: Human Rights, Global Ethics and the Ordinary Virtues
Tom Douglas' presentation at the MT16 Oxford- Bucharest Work in Progress Workshop Speakers from Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and Bucharest University’s Research Centre in Applied Ethics (CCEA) present work in progress on a range of themes in applied ethics. In this episode, Tom Douglas presents 'Parfitian Survival and Punishing Crimes from the Distant Past'.
In this St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, Dr Nina Hallowell discusses the importance of therapeutic optimism in clinical research. Hope, or therapeutic optimism, is an important aspect of the provision and experience of medical care. The role of therapeutic optimism in clinical research has been briefly discussed within the empirical and bioethics literature, but the concept, and whether it can be transferred from care to research and from patients to clinicians, has not been fully investigated. Interviews with clinical staff involved in a peripartum randomised placebo-controlled trial– the Got-it trial - revealed that therapeutic optimism has an important role to play facilitating clinical staff engagement with trial work. In this paper I will unpack the concept of therapeutic optimism in trial settings, describe how it is sustained in practice and outline some of the ethical risks and benefits.
In this episode, Professor Neil Levy assesses objections to cognitive enhancement and argues that the means don't matter from a moral perspective: what matters is how the intervention affects cognition. According to the parity principle, the means whereby an agent intervenes in his or her mind, or the minds of others, is irrelevant when it comes to assessing the moral status of the intervention: what matters is how the intervention affects the agent. In this paper, I set out the case for the parity principle, before defending it from recent objections due to Christoph Bublitz and Reinhard Merkel. Bublitz and Merkel argue that direct interventions bypass agents’ psychological capacities and therefore produce states over which agents have less control and which are less reflective of who they genuinely are. I argue that direct interventions that are processed psychologically may be no less destructive of control or of the degree to which the resulting states are reflective of the agent, and, further, that direct interventions may be morally unproblematic. Given that right now and for the foreseeable future indirect interventions threaten our autonomy far more often and far more deeply than direct, the distinction between direct and indirect interventions doesn’t even provide a useful heuristic for assessing when an intervention into the mind/brain is problematic.
The first of the two 2016 Leverhulme Lectures by Professor Neil Levy on the topic of implicit bias People who sincerely express a commitment to equality sometimes act in ways that seem to belie that commitment. There is good evidence that these actions are sometimes caused by implicit mental states, of which people may not be aware. In this lecture, I introduce these states, explore how significant a role they play in explaining behaviour, and how they can be changed.
In this seminar we explore why human interventions such as euthanasia or use of biotechnologies are controversial. Is it wrong to intervene in biological processes? Human intervention in the living world gives rise to controversies where scientists are criticised for working on biotechnologies and physicians for ending life when a terminally ill patient is experiencing unmanageable suffering. This lecture will explain the perpetuation of political controversies by showing that scientific and moral assessments of human intervention in the living world are unsolvable because they are based on cognitive biases. Looking at case studies of such controversial issues (end of life intervention, GMOs and synthetic biology debates), my analysis will focus on the apparent clarity of the double contrast between natural beings and artificial objects on the one hand, and risk and realms of uncertainty on the other. The interesting point here is that the relationship between scientific expertise and political issues is clearly related to these implicit epistemological prerequisites.
Dr Jonathan Pugh discusses the morally permissibility of non-consensual medical interventions. Although a central tenet of medical ethics holds that it is permissible to perform a medical intervention on a competent individual only if that individual has given informed consent to that intervention, there are some circumstances in which it seems that this moral requirement may be trumped. For instance, in some circumstances, it might be claimed that it is morally permissible to carry out certain sorts of non-consensual interventions on competent individuals for the purpose of infectious disease control (IDC). In this paper, I shall explain how one might defend this practice, and consider the extent to which similar considerations might be invoked in favour of carrying out non-consensual medical interventions for the purposes of facilitating rehabilitation amongst criminal offenders. Having considered examples of non-consensual interventions in IDC that seem to be morally permissible, I shall describe two different moral frameworks that a defender of this practice might invoke in order to justify such interventions. I shall then identify five desiderata that can be used to guide the assessments of the moral permissibility of non-consensual IDC interventions on either kind of fundamental justification. Following this analysis, I shall consider how the justification of non-consensual interventions for the purpose of IDC compares to the justification of non-consensual interventions for the purpose of facilitating criminal rehabilitation, according to these five desiderata. I shall argue that the analysis I provide suggests that a plausible case can be made in favour of carrying certain sorts of non-consensual interventions for the purpose facilitating rehabilitation amongst criminal offenders.
Sinnott-Armstrong is the Chauncey Stillman Professor of Ethics at Duke University. In this inaugural workshop, professors from Duke University presented papers in Oxford in June 2015.
In this talk, Dr Josh Shepherd examines the claim that self-consciousness is highly morally significant. Many share an intuition that self-consciousness is highly morally significant. Some hold that self-consciousness significantly enhances an entity’s moral status. Others hold that self-consciousness underwrites the attribution of so-called personhood (or full moral status) to self-conscious entities. I examine the claim that self-consciousness is highly morally significant, such that the fact that an entity is self-conscious generates strong moral reasons to treat that entity in certain ways (reasons that, for example, make killing such entities a very serious matter). I analyse four arguments in support of such a claim, and find all four wanting. We lack good reasons to think self-consciousness is highly morally significant.
In this talk I explain the nature of national security interest in the burgeoning field of neuroscience and its implications for military and counter-intelligence operations. Professor Jonathan Moreno (University of Pennsylvania). Jonathan D. Moreno is the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania where he is one of fifteen Penn Integrates Knowledge professors. At Penn he is also Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, of History and Sociology of Science, and of Philosophy. His latest book is Impromptu Man: J.L. Moreno and the Origins of Psychodrama, Encounter Culture, and the Social Network (2014), which Amazon named a “#1 hot new release.” Among his previous books are The Body Politic, which was named a Best Book of 2011 by Kirkus Reviews, Mind Wars (2012), and Undue Risk (2000). Moreno frequently contributes to such publications as The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Huffington Post, and Psychology Today, and often appears on broadcast and online media. In 2008-09 he served as a member of President Barack Obama’s transition team. His work has been cited by Al Gore and was used in the development of the screenplay for “The Bourne Legacy.” His online neuroethics course drew more than 36,000 registrants in fall 2013. The American Journal of Bioethics has called him “the most interesting bioethicist of our time.” Moreno is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and is the U.S. member of the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee. A Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., Moreno has served as an adviser to many governmental and non-governmental organizations, including three presidential commissions, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He holds the Visiting Professorship in History at the University of Kent, Canterbury, England. Moreno holds a Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis, was an Andrew W. Mellon post-doctoral fellow, holds an honorary doctorate from Hofstra University, and is a recipient of the Benjamin Rush Medal from the College of William and Mary Law School and the Dr. Jean Mayer Award for Global Citizenship from Tufts University.
Is self-control a character trait or should we look to external props for self-control? There is evidence that self-control is a character trait. This evidence seems inconsistent with the management approach I advocate, since that approach urges that we look to external props for self-control, not to states of the agent. In this lecture I argue, that contrary to appearances, we should hesitate to think that people high in what is known as trait self-control have any such character trait. In fact, properly understood the evidence concerning trait self-control supports the management approach.
This lecture outlines some of the main perspectives on self-control and its loss stemming from recent work in psychology. I focus in particular on the puzzle arising from the role of glucose in successful self-control. Glucose ingestion seems to boost self-control but there is good evidence that it doesn't do this by providing fuel for the relevant mechanisms. I suggest that glucose functions as a cue of resource availability rather than fuel.
Self-control problems typically arise from conflicts between smaller sooner and larger later rewards. In this lecture I suggest that we often fail successfully to navigate these problems because of our commitment to a conception of ourselves as rational agents who answer questions about ourselves by looking to the world. Despite the attractions of this conception, I argue that it undermines efforts at self-control and thereby our capacity to pursue the ends we value. I suggest we think of self-control as a problem of self-management, whereby we manipulate ourselves.
What, if anything, is wrong with swearing? And, what exactly are we doing when we try to swear inoffensively? I begin by reflecting on why we swear, why it is widely deemed offensive, and some of the benefits of swearing. I then turn to the widespread practice of substituting asterisks for letters (and analogous spoken strategies) in an effort to swear without causing offence, and consider what could possibly explain how such a practice succeeds (if it does) in making swear words less offensive. I argue that – to the extent that swearing is offensive – there is no plausible philosophical story according to which this practice succeeds in rendering swearing inoffensive, and that some accounts of why swearing is offensive entail that asterisked swearing actually magnifies the badness of swearing. I conclude that, in so far as we are willing to view asterisked swearing as inoffensive, we should not be offended by swearing. (This talk will contain swearing. However, since the speaker hopes to convince you that swearing is less offensive than it is often taken to be, you should not let this dissuade you from coming along.)
Dr Richard Hain, Consultant in Paediatric Palliative Medicine, explores the difficulties in rationally explaining the value of an infant’s life. Anyone who has been present at the memorial service for an infant knows that, in practice, people accord the life of a child a special value. Those caring for infants, like those caring for children who are cognitively impaired, intuitively respond to their patients as though they were particularly precious, and feel an obligation to care for infants - that is, to act in their interests - that expresses that value. Principlism is the dominant paradigm in medical ethics. It explains the value of life using both a utilitarian subjectivist account (there is a rational sense in which the individual’s continued existence will be in her own interests and/or those of others) and a deontological objective one (there are ‘contracts’ or ’ties of family’ whose nature, other things being equal, expresses an obligation to act in the interests of the individual, independently of any impact on the interests of others). Both accounts are problematic in infants. Infants reason differently from adults, and they are by definition dependent on others. They apprehend the universe in a way that is meaningful, but probably does not link moral action with outcome. The infant therefore values its life in the moment, but does not have an interest in its continuing existence in the way a subjectivist account of intrinsic value requires. An obligation to act in the interests of an infant is complicated by the fact that those interests must be articulated by adults. Adults can be owner, carer, proxy or advocate for the infant, and may speak in all four voices simultaneously. It is often impossible in practice (it may not even be possible in principle), to explicate the interests of adults from those of an infant in the way the objective deontological account of an infant’s value requires. In order to explain rationally the value of an infant’s life, we need to consider a different account of interests; one that does not depend on characteristics such a reason and independence that infants definitionally do not possess, but instead flows from characteristics such as meaning-making and relationality that they self-evidently do.
This talk explores the central argument in Boylan's recent book, 'Natural Human Rights: A Theory' Arguing against the grain of most contemporary writers on the subject, I contend that an examination of the structure and function of human action allows one to bridge the fact/value chasm to create binding positive duties that recognize fundamental human rights claims. This theoretical argument is then suggestively applied to contemporary social and political problems in the world.
Research shows that implicit moral attitudes affect our thinking and behavior. This talk reports new psychological and neuroscientific research and explores potential implications for scientific moral psychology as well as for some philosophical theories.
In this St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, Jeremy Howick defends Grünbaum’s work on placebos. He outlines a need to re-examine policies on ethics of placebos, and revise our estimations of their effects in both clinical practice and trials. There is currently no widely accepted definition of ‘placebos’. Yet debates about the ethics of placebo use (in routine practice or clinical trials) and the magnitude (if any!) of ‘placebo’ effects continue to rage. Even if not formally required, a definition of the ‘placebo’ concept could inform these debates. Grünbaum’s 1981/1986 characterization of the ‘placebo’ has been cited as the best attempt thus far, but has not been widely accepted. Here we argue that criticisms of Grünbaum’s scheme are either exaggerated, unfounded or based on misunderstandings. We propose that, with three modifications, Grünbaum’s scheme can be defended. Grünbaum argues that all interventions can be classified by a therapeutic theory into ‘incidental’ and ‘characteristic’ features. ‘Placebos’, then, are treatments whose characteristic features do not have effects on the target disorder. To Grünbaum whether a treatment counts as a placebo or not is relative to a target disorder, and a therapeutic theory. We modify Grünbaum’s scheme in the following way. First, we add ‘harmful intervention’ and ‘nocebo’ categories; second, we insist that what counts as a ‘placebo’ (or nonplacebo) be relativized to patients; and third, we issue a clarification about the overall classification of an intervention. We argue that our modified version of Grünbaum’s scheme resists published criticisms. Our work warrants a re-examination of current policies of the ethics of placebos in both clinical practice and clinical trials, and a revised empirical estimation of ‘placebo’ effects, both in the context of clinical trials and clinical practice.
Tom Walker discusses autonomy and informed consent to medical treatment There are two features of consenting to medical treatment that have been little explored in the extensive literature on this topic. The first is that the requirement to obtain consent is conditional in the following sense – we only need to obtain consent for those things that are both wrong if done without consent, and that we want or have reason to do. The second is that whilst many patients in their interactions with doctors are initially uninformed, this does not always prevent them from choosing to have, or not to have, possible treatments. In this paper I explore the implications of these two features for the idea that doctors ought to provide information to patients about the treatments they propose. I will argue that these features create a serious problem for the widely held idea that it would be wrong, because it would fail to respect his autonomy, to give a competent patient medical treatment without his valid consent (where this refers to a voluntary and informed agreement to have the treatment). As such the requirement to respect autonomy will not give any reason for doctors to provide information in these cases; in fact on at least some accounts of autonomy the obligation to respect autonomy would give them a reason not to provide that information. The paper then goes on to consider some ways in which the obligation to provide information about potential treatments could be supported.
If networking is considered to be either cultivating non-merit-based favouritism or demonstrating one’s merit in advance of formal selection processes, then I argue that it is an attempt to gain illegitimate advantage over competitors and is thus immoral. Networking is taken to be a perfectly innocuous part of business and career-advancement. I argue that, where the aim is to increase one’s prospects of prevailing in a formal competitive process for a job or university placement, networking is an attempt to gain illegitimate advantage. This is true no matter which of the two standard characterisations we accept. If networking is about building personal relationships, as some claim, then it involves cultivating non-merit-based favouritism. To that extent it shares one of the wrong-making features of bribery. On the other hand if networking is about demonstrating one’s merit in advance of formal selection processes, it shares one of the wrong-making features of earwigging in legal advocacy. One way or the other, the networker denies (or tries to deny) rival candidates something to which they are presumptively entitled. Either he denies their right not to be disadvantaged for reasons other than lack of relative merit, or he denies their right not to be disadvantaged by private ex parte communications that take place outside of formal selection processes.
Antidepressants are commonplace yet there is much debate about their clinical efficacy. Are they merely placebos or do they have a clinical effect on the way our brains work? In this presentation, Professor Cowen investigates the evidence. Antidepressant drugs are commonly prescribed for clinical depression but have a rather dubious public reception. Professor Ian Reid has commented that, 'antidepressants are regularly caricatured in the media as an addictive emotional anaesthetic, peddled by thoughtless general practitioners as a matter of convenience, and taken by credulous dupes who seek "a pill for every ill".' (BMJ 2013; 346: f190). There is also a perception that antidepressants, in fact, work only through placebo mechanisms and have no specific activity to relieve depression. In this presentation I will look at the evidence for the effectiveness of antidepressants and the kind of clinical situation where their use seems justified. I will also describe a new 'cognitive' theory of antidepressant action which suggests that antidepressants work through a specific effect on how the brain evaluates emotional information.
We explore some possible interactions between enhancement technology and punishment, reflect on ethical issues that arise as a result, and consider what our justice system must do in order to ensure that it keeps pace with developments in technology. Criminal justice systems currently employ a limited range of penal sanctions to punish offenders. The type and nature of the sanctions employed are, in large part, determined by the penal aims a particular system is designed to pursue. However, they are also shaped by beliefs about what people are typically like, and by the resources available to develop and deploy punishments. Technology - particularly human enhancement technology - could change both of these latter influences. It could facilitate more effective punishments, support existing punishments, undermine certain punishments, make certain punishments more severe than was originally intended, and alter the resources available for punishments and the constraints on types of punishment.
The talk discusses the balance between cyber security measures and individual rights - any fair and reasonable society should implement the former successfully while respecting and furthering the latter. Defeating online insecurity is like defeating a Hydra with many heads: from e-commerce and online banking scams to malware, from hacking to cyberwar, it requires Herculean efforts to slay the Hydra. However, fighting and preventing attacks on security may easily cause serious ethical problems, since security measures can also undermine individual liberties such as privacy, freedom of speech and expression. This is because such measures often rest on the collection, storage, access, or elaboration of individuals' personal information. Clearly, any democratic government, fair society and responsible organisation need to identify a balance between online security and individual rights, in order to implement the former successfully while respecting and furthering the latter. The talk discusses a criterion for such a balance to be ethically sound. It is claimed that cyber security measures and individual rights are not necessarily antithetical and that they should be both considered fundamental aspects of individual's well-being in the information age.
If doping were done in a healthy and fair way, would it be OK? If so, all wrongs would lie in doping abuses involving health risks, deceit and unfairness. I argue that perhaps the doping sinner best exemplifies human dignity and existential authenticity. If doping would be done in a sufficiently healthy, candid, autonomous, wise and fair way, would doping be OK? If so, all wrongs would lie in doping abuses, namely when done with too much health risks, deceit, coercion, fecklessness and unfairness. I will briefly advocate this important point - already made by many others - only to proceed to the further argument that under certain circumstances, perhaps nobody can exemplify human(ist) dignity and existential(ist) authenticity better than that modern witch, the doping sinner. From a humanist-existentialist self-understanding, which I take to be the most plausible outlook on life, moral character and authenticity demand that one does not imagine one's biological constitution to be a responsibility-relieving excuse or a purpose-providing exhortation - no matter how psychologically gratifying that would be. Instead, our god- and nature-forsaken human condition should be acknowledged and if possible, testified of in practice. What better way to do so than to supplant some fundamental part of one's natural blueprint with an artefact of one's own volition, enabling oneself to realize an existence that is originally and authentically one's own? Affirming Leon Kass' dictum that "an untroubled soul in a troubling world is a shrunken human being", I concur that we must not manipulate our self-understanding so as to blind ourselves from discomforting but true aspects of the human predicament, for instance via a helping of Aldous Huxley's wellbeing-inducing drug Soma. However, in a second irony an analogy can be made between Soma and the more traditional opiate of religion. One could argue that by fabulating some (crypto-)creationist or teleological self-understanding and thinking one lives meaningfully by following the cues of one's biology, in a sense one dopes oneself into a inauthentic and morally unwarranted state of existential comfort. In a third and final irony, I again wholeheartedly affirm the widespread anti-enhancement worry that for all the health, ability, beauty and welfare that the human enhancement enterprise may bring, we will be enhancing ourselves into a state of increasingly acute existential perplexity. Indeed, as the determinants that shape and drive our existence become increasingly up for grabs, the plausibility of a prefabricated meaning to our existence crumbles, and our self-understanding becomes increasingly circular. I argue therefore that Bill McKibben is right in fearing that "should we ever escape our limits and become 'everything' we will become - nothing." However, I take this experience of existential vacuity to be at the heart of the human tragedy. I conclude that we must above all not see ourselves as creatures of Nature, God or Fortune who live meaningfully by executing their directives. Sharing the core values and concerns of Kass and McKibben, my conclusion is the polar opposite to theirs. We ought to openly affirm our god- and nature-forsaken condition and, ideally, wilfully estrange ourselves from our default biology to testify of our (unfortunate but true) condemnation to be free. To a significant extent, it would make us a Homo Ludens come full circle: living a life of our own devise, in bodies of our own devise.
The trolley problem is a thought experiment in ethics. Outside traditional philosophical discussion, the trolley problem has been a significant feature in the fields of cognitive science and neuroethics. You have been set the following trolley problem by a villain. There is a central track, called CONTINUE. If you do nothing, the trolley will continue down this track, and kill whomever is at the end of it, then stop. Part way along the line, there is a junction, with a lever. If you pull that lever, then the trolley will go down one of two tracks - STOP and LOOP. If it goes down STOP, then it stops, killing whoever is at the end of the line (if anyone). If it goes down LOOP, it returns to the start of the track, killing whoever is on LOOP, and leading to the trolley returning to the junction. The lever determining which way the trolley will go is probabilistic, and the villain controls the probabilities. The villain also controls how many people are tied to the tracks, and which tracks they are tied to. Importantly, if the trolley goes down LOOP, killing whoever is on there, then the villain will replace those victims with fresh ones. This paper, animated by a concern that deontological theorists have trouble accommodating ignorance and uncertainty into our theories, develops a broadly deontological approach to iterated, probabilistic decision problems like this one.
Geoengineering, as a response to climate change, raises serious ethical and socio-political issues. Drawing on the latest developments in philosophy and ethics of technology and science, I consider a post-humanist way of analysing such issues. Along with mitigation and adaptation, geoengineering, i.e. "the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change" has become increasingly visible as a third option in response to anthropogenic climate change. Yet, it has also been widely acknowledged that geoengineering - whether its research and development or implementation - will raise serious ethical, socio-political and legal issues. Instead of examining specific ethical issues in the ethics of geoengineering, I shall argue for a specific approach to ethics of geoengineering. Drawing from the latest developments in philosophy and ethics of technology and science and technology studies (STS), I outline a post-humanist virtue ethics, which, I believe, offers an alternative way to analyse ethical issues raised by geoengineering.My argument is based on the view that geoengineering should be understood as large technical systems (LTSs), i.e. large infrastructural and production systems. If such an understanding of geoengineering as LTS is correct, then it immediately raises two problems with the ethical analyses that focus on the decisions about (or, decision-making procedures for) and/or outcomes of geoengineering: firstly, the high degree of uncertainty with respect to the outcomes from LTSs, which is especially true in the case of geoengineering, has challenged the ethical analyses which based their judgments on the outcomes from LTSs. Secondly, as Susan Leigh Starr notes, "[b]ecause infrastructure is big, layered, and complex, and because it means different things locally, it is never changed from above. Changes take time and negotiation, and adjustment with other aspects of the systems are involved. Nobody is really in charge of infrastructure"; Starr's remark highlights the insignificance of individuals' decisions (and intentions) in the context of LTSs. Against this background, Brad Allenby proposes "macroethics" as a different level of ethics that takes systems as the unit of ethical reflection, and focus on the process in LTS's research and development and implementation. Allenby's call for a macroethics, I think, echoes on one hand with a recent shift towards a more distributed sense of morality, and on the other hand a shift towards ethics of design. Here, I argue that virtue ethics provide the best theoretical and normative underpinning of macroethics. Epitomised by the question "how should we live?" - instead of "what is the right decisions and-or actions?" or "what is the best consequence?", virtue ethics is particularly fitting as an ethics for processes. The obstacle for adopting virtue ethics in ethical analyses of geoengineering (or, any LTS), however, is that virtue ethics is largely humanist, and therefore it seems to be inapplicable to LTS such as geoengineering. Yet, I argue that an extension of agency to nonhuman entities in recent research in philosophy and ethics of technology (e.g. Luciano Floridi and Peter-Paul Verbeek) and STS (e.g. Bruno Latour) provides us a valuable opportunity to reconceptualise virtue ethics and develop a virtue-theoretical approach to geoengineering.
In this talk, I argue that non-therapeutic circumcision of infants is unethical, whether performed for reasons of obtaining possible future health benefits, for reasons of cultural transmission, or for reasons of perceived religious obligation. In this talk, I argue 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. I begin with the premise that it should be considered morally impermissible to sever healthy, functional genital tissue from another person's body without first asking for, and then actually receiving, that person's informed consent-otherwise, this action would qualify as a criminal assault. I then raise a number of possible exceptions to this rule, to see whether they could reasonably serve to justify the practice of infant male circumcision in certain cases. First, what if it could be established that the risk of contracting certain diseases might be diminished by removing a person's foreskin in infancy, as is often suggested in the United States? Second, what if circumcision could be shown to reduce the spread of AIDS in African populations with high transmission rates of HIV? Third, what if the infant's parents believed that they had a cultural or a religious obligation to remove the foreskin from his penis before he was old enough to give his consent? After discussing the merits of these considerations as possible "exceptions" to the ethical premise with which I will have begun my talk, I go on to conclude that they do not present compelling justifications for circumcision before the boy is old enough to understand what is at stake in such a surgery and to decide for himself whether he would like to part with his own foreskin. I conclude with a discussion of the similarities and differences between male and female forms of genital cutting, and I argue that anyone who is committed to the view that infant male circumcision is morally permissible must also accept the moral permissibility of some (though not all) forms of female genital cutting. However, as I argue, neither type of cutting should be allowed absent clear consent of the individual and/or strict medical necessity.
Exploring different ways in which the metaphysics of religious world views can be used in justifications of violence, this talk concentrates on appeals to the importance of the afterlife to justify violence. Much has been written about the relationship between religion and violence, and much of what has been written is aimed at trying to determine whether, how and why religion causes violence. In my forthcoming book The Justification of Religious Violence (Wiley-Blackwell), I pursue a different goal, which is to understand if and how religion can be used to justify violence. Followers of many different religions, who commit violent acts, seek to justify these by appealing to religion. I argue that religious believers are able to incorporate premises, grounded in the metaphysics of religious world views, in arguments for the conclusion that this or that violent act is justified.
The lecture describes why financial theory and teaching has ignored ethics, viewing moral values as irrelevant. We trace the reason for the neglect of ethics back to assumptions made by Modern Finance Theory, the en courant theory in finance. The neo-classical assumption that economic agents are rational profit maximizers has, over decades, become uncritically accepted as the norm and the truth about people's economic behavior in western-style capitalist economies. The lecture demonstrates how economic agents are assumed to be rational profit maximizing individuals has become the ethic i.e., economic agents ought to be rational, profit maximizing individuals. This resulting ethic is an impoverished value system, inadequate for an increasingly complex, global financial system. Modern finance theory is no more a complete version of truth than is Marxist dialectical materialism, or postmodernist deconstructionism. If a theory (MFT) can demobilize ethics in finance, then a theory also can activate ethics in finance. We need to add to the current popular theory of finance i.e. MFT so that it includes principles of both finance and ethics. One way to develop a new theory is to synthesize the three extant financial theories - the still dominant Modern Finance Theory; the emerging theory of behavioral finance; and the still inchoate theory of Islamic finance. Each of the three theories has its own strengths and focuses on one aspect of economic reality. Modern finance theory is robust on economic and quantitative modeling and forecasting. Behavioral finance describes and takes into account the human psychological basis of decision making in financial markets. Islamic finance theory is unapologetically directed by ethical values. Islamic finance focuses on finance as it is useful in supporting and helping the growth and development of the community and its people. Is it possible to have a financial theory that is the synthesis of the three perspectives of finance?
In this talk we first argue that the reactive attitudes originate in very fast non-voluntary processes involving constant facial feedback. In the second part we examine the supposed constitutive relation between the reactive attitudes and responsibility. This talk explores the connections between the folk psychological project of interpretation, the reactive attitudes and responsibility. The first section argues that the reactive attitudes originate in very fast and to a significant extent, non-voluntary processes involving constant facial feedback. These processes allow for smooth interaction between participants and are important to the interpretive practices that ground intimate relationships as well as to a great many less intense interactions. We will examine cases of facial paralysis (Moebius Syndrome and Botox studies) to support the argument that when these processes are interrupted or impaired, the interpretive project breaks down and social relationships suffer. But do failures of interpretation lead, as Strawson suggests, to the suspension of the reactive attitudes relevant to responsibility assessments? We suggest that in many important instances they do not. Here we consider the cases of children who murder, alien cultures, and psychopaths. In the second part we examine the supposed constitutive relation between the reactive attitudes and responsibility.
Nutt argues that there are serious ethical implications for a simplistic prohibitionist approach to drugs and suggests alternative strategies that might be used. The use of the law to control drug use is long established though still unproven in efficacy. Although seemingly obvious that legal interdictions should work there is little evidence to support this assertion. So for example cannabis though illegal is at some time used by nearly half of the population. Similarly drugs like ecstasy and amfetamine are widely used by up to a million young people each weekend. This use is underpinned by a demand for the pleasurable experiences that the drugs produce, and also by a paradoxical desire by some people to break the law. As well as being ineffective for many users prohibition of drugs often leads to perverse magnification of harms and drug use. When the "English" approach to heroin use (prescription to addicts) was abolished in the 1970s on moral grounds heroin use increased tenfold in a few years as addicts were forced to become dealers so getting more people addicted to fuel their income. The banning of alcohol in the 1920s in the USA lead to huge criminal expansion of alcohol sales the perpetrators of which turned to other drugs once prohibition was repealed: a legacy that we still experience today. Moreover the un-scientific and arbitrary distinct between legal drugs particularly alcohol and tobacco and "illegal" drugs also has perverse negative consequences. As well as bringing the scientific foundation of the drug laws into disrepute it also precludes the use of possibly life-changing drugs for those who might benefit from them as treatments: examples of these include cannabis for Multiple sclerosis, MDMA [ecstasy] for PTSD and psilocybin for cluster headaches.
Associate Professor Rob Sparrow (Monash) and PhD student Chris Gyngell (ANU) present talks on the topic of human enhancement. Rob Sparrow on 'Enhancement and Obsolescence: Avoiding An "Enhanced Rat Race"': A claim about continuing technological progress plays an essential, if unacknowledged, role in the philosophical literature on "human enhancement". Advocates for enhancement typically point to the rapid progress being made in the development of biotechnologies, information technology, and nanotechnology as evidence that we will soon be able to achieve significant improvements on normal human capacities through applications of these technologies. In this paper, I will argue that - should it eventuate - continuous improvement in enhancement technologies may prove more bane than benefit. A rapid increase in the power of available enhancements would mean that each cohort of enhanced individuals will find itself in danger of being outcompeted by the next in competition for important social goods - a situation I characterise as an 'enhanced rat race'. Rather than risk the chance of being rendered technologically and socially obsolete by the time one is in one's early 20s, it may be rational to prefer that a wide range of enhancements that would generate positional disadvantages that outweigh their absolute advantages be prohibited altogether. The danger of an enhanced rat race therefore constitutes a novel argument in favour of abandoning the pursuit of certain sorts of enhancements. Chris Gyngell on 'Stocking the Genetic Supermarket: Genetic Enhancements and Collective Action Problems': In the near future parents may be able to directly alter the genetic make-up of their children using genetic engineering technologies (GETs). A popular model that has been proposed for regulating access to GETs is the 'genetic supermarket'. In the genetic supermarket parents are free to make decisions about which genes to select for their children with little state interference. One possible consequence of the genetic supermarket is that 'collective action problems' will arise. The combined result of individuals using the market to pursue self-interested gains may have a negative effect on society as a whole, and on future generations. In this paper I look at whether GETs targeting height, innate immunity, and certain cognitive traits would lead to collective action problems if available in the genetic supermarket. I argue that that the widespread availability of GETs targeting height are unlikely to lead to genuine collective action problems, but that those targeting innate immunity and aspects of our cognition, could. I then briefly discuss some implications of this claim for the regulation of GETs.
Self-harm using poison is a serious public health problem in Sri Lanka. As part of an effort to tackle the problem, clinical trials are used to identify effective antidotes. This talk describes the conduct of trials in this unusual and difficult context. Based on ethnographic material collected in rural hospitals in Sri Lanka between 2008 and 2009, this talk outlines three subject positions crucial to understanding the complexity of such clinical trials. At one level, research participants who have taken poison might be thought of as abjects, that is, stigmatised by actions that have placed them at the very limits of physical and social life. They have seriously harmed themselves in an act that often leads to death, marking the act as a suicide. Yet, this is the point when they are recruited into trials and become objects of research and experimentation. Participation in experimental research accords them particular rights mandated in international ethical guidelines for human subject research. Here the inexorable logic of trials and morality of care meet in circumstances of dire emergency and in such contexts, we argue, (bio)ethics is precarious.
Legal punishment as the routine infliction of suffering poses a serious challenge of justification. The challenge becomes more urgent as a number of thinkers argue that the dominant, retributivist answer fails in the light of the findings of neuroscience. In this talk I sketch a general account of retributivist justification of punishment and the basic neuroscientific argument against it. I then explore ways of challenging the argument by modifying the retributivist account of responsibility and desert. I analyze several variations and argue that none are plausible. I conclude by suggesting one way in which the notion of criminal responsibility can be rescued, but at the theoretical cost of changing the grounds of justification.
Many aims that motivate unjust wars could be achieved without violence if not met with military resistance. So is self-defense against aggression always permissible? Are the values of state sovereignty important enough to justify war in their defense? Wrongful aggressors often claim to love peace, and there is a sense in which that is true, for they would prefer to get what they want without having to fight a war. Many of the aims that motivate unjust wars could be achieved without violence: for example, control of certain natural resources such as oil, limited political control over another state, the annexation of a bit of its territory, and so on. In such cases, war and killing become necessary for aggressors only if they meet with military resistance. If an aggressor's aims were limited, so that the aggressor would not kill or seriously harm any citizen if it could achieve its goals without violence, would it be permissible for the victims to go to war in self-defense? The traditional assumption is that self-defense against aggression is always permissible. But are the values of state sovereignty and territorial integrity always, or even generally, sufficiently important on their own to justify the resort to war in their defense?
How do we know when our donations are helping, and how much they are helping? Are charities roughly equally good, or are some much more effective than others? Toby Ord and Harry Shannon discuss effective philanthropy from different angles. When we make donations to good causes we are trying to help make the world a better place. But what is the best way to do this? How do we know when our donations are helping, and how much they are helping? Are charities roughly equally good, or are some much more effective than others? And should we encourage our governments to do more?
Uncertainty and quality should be integrated into the quantitative sciences of complex systems; this talk offers some practical techniques that illustrate how this could be accomplished. The faith that truth lies in numbers goes back to the Pythagorean attempt to unify both practical and theoretical sciences. Its current manifestation is the idolisation of pre-Einsteinian physics in the quantification of social, economic, and behavioural sciences. The talk will explain how this "crisp number" mode of thinking has promoted the use of over-simplistic models and masking of uncertainties that can in turn lead to incomplete understanding of problems and bad decisions. The quality of a model in terms of its fitness for purpose can be ignored when convenience, especially computerised convenience, offers more easily calculated crisp numbers. Yet these inadequacies matter when computerised models generate pseudo-realities of their own through structures such as financial derivatives and processes such as algorithmic trading. Like Frankenstein's monster, we have already seen financial market pseudo-reality take on an uncontrolled, unstable and dangerous life of its own, all the more beguiling when it generated income for all parties in the merry-go-round. Despite its manifest failings, it is still going on.
Neil Levy explores some of the previous debates about whether psychopaths are fully responsible for their wrongdoing, especially work on the moral/conventional distinction. Psychopaths commit a disproportionate amount of crime, and seem cognitively unimpaired. They are often thought to be bad, not mad. I advance a deflationary explanation of the moral/conventional task, and argue that this explanation entails that psychopaths fail to act with the quality of will that would underwrite holding them to be fully responsible for their actions. Neil Levy specialises in free will and moral responsibility, and empirical approaches to ethics. He has published widely on many topics in philosophy, including bioethics, applied philosophy, continental philosophy and free will. He is the author of 4 books and over 50 articles in refereed journals. He has written a book on neuroethics for Cambridge University Press (2007).
John Broome, the White's Professor of Moral Philosophy, debates the value of life with Jeff McMahan, focussing on McMahan's time-relative account of the value of life, which Broome has criticised. This public event was held as part of Professor McMahan's Astor Visiting Lectureship 2013. The debate was well attended, and provided a rare opportunity to bring together McMahan and Broome in to discuss a topic of enormous and wide ranging practical significance. Jeff McMahan is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He did his graduate work at Oxford and Cambridge and was a research fellow at St. John's College, Cambridge. He is the author of 'The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life' (2002) and 'Killing in War' (2009). He has several other books forthcoming from OUP, including a collection of essays called 'The Values of Lives', a book on war intended for both academic and nonacademic readers called 'The Right Way to Fight', and a sequel to his 2002 book called 'The Ethics of Killing: Self-Defense, War, and Punishment'. John Broome is currently the White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Broome was educated at the University of Cambridge, at the University of London and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received a PhD in economics. Before arriving at Oxford he was Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews and, prior to that, Professor of Economics and Philosophy at the University of Bristol. He has held visiting posts at the University of Virginia, the Australian National University, Princeton University, the University of Washington, the University of British Columbia, the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, and the University of Canterbury. In 2007 Broome was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. His book 'Weighing Goods' (1991) explores the way in which goods "located" in each of the three "dimensions" - time, people, states of nature - make up overall goodness. Broome argues that these dimensions are linked by what he calls the interpersonal addition theorem, which supports the utilitarian principle of distribution. In his book Weighing Lives (2004), Broome rejects the presumed intuition that adding people to the population is ethically neutral. In his collection of papers, titled 'Ethics out of Economics' (1999), he discusses topics such as value, equality, fairness, and utility.
Discussing a paper co-authored with David Birks, Alexandre Erler suggests sleeping less can provide a greater opportunity for well-being. While many people today are not sleeping long enough, there is still an important minority of the population who sleeps longer than average. Even a small reduction in the number of hours a person sleeps could have a significant positive impact on how well that person's life can go. The authors propose that there is a strong reason to investigate any ways of allowing people, particularly long sleepers, to function on less sleep without harming their health or quality of life.
Emotional pain and difficulty in relationships is potentially dangerous and destructive. In this talk, I explore some of the potential uses and misuses of anti-love biotechnology from a scientific and ethical perspective. "Love hurts" - as the saying goes - and a certain degree of pain and difficulty in intimate relationships is unavoidable. Sometimes it may even be beneficial, since, as it is often argued, some types (and amounts) of suffering can lead to personal growth, self-discovery, and a range of other essential components of a life well-lived. But other times, love is downright dangerous. Either it can trap a person in a cycle of violence, as in some domestic abuse cases, or it can prevent a person from moving on with her life or forming healthier relationships. The idea of an anti-love remedy or a "cure" for love is as old as love itself. References may be found in the writings of Lucretius, Ovid, Shakespeare, and many others, and are tightly linked to the notion that love or infatuation-under certain conditions-can be just like a serious illness: bad for one's physical and mental health and, in some cases, profoundly damaging to one's overall well-being. But unlike these ancient remedies, modern neuroscience and bio-psycho-pharmacology create the possibility of designing a "cure" for love that could actually work, raising a number of ethical questions about their possible use. In this talk, I explore some of the potential uses and misuses of anti-love bio-technlogy from a scientific and ethical perspective.
This series of lectures attempts to explore whether possible relations between some typical religious virtues, attitudes and practices and typical democratic virtues, attitudes and practices must be a source of conflict or can be mutually supportive. There seem to be several sources of anxiety about the role that religion plays or might play in the world of public democratic politics. Some concern the widespread perception that there is an inherent tendency for religion to provoke instability, conflict, even violence. Others turn on questions of unfairness if religion, or some specific religion, is given a positive place in the political order. Another source is the view that any role for religion in the public sphere must be incompatible with the "secular" nature of the modern democratic state. Yet another source (sometimes voiced by the same people) concerns the supposed "irrationality" of religious faith which is seen as inimical to the public rationality regarded as central to modern democracy: religions ought not be able to coerce the non-religious by having the power to implement policies that are not amenable to the right sort of public contestation. A related concern is the worry that the sort of personal autonomy required by liberal democracy is rejected by (all?many?some?) religions.
The speaker presents some recent work that has been done on children who are seen to be at risk of violence; and raises questions about the social and ethical significance of studying children in this way and for this purpose. Most societies seek to reduce the level of violence that occurs between its members and utilise social and political means to do so. There has been increasing interest in the possibilities of using psychiatric and psychological means to reduce violence; chiefly by identifying potentially violent individuals and intervening in some way. I will present some recent work that has been done on children who are seen to be at risk of violence; and raise questions about the social and ethical significance of studying children in this way and for this purpose. Gwen Adshead is a Forensic Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist. She trained at St George's hospital, the Institute of Psychiatry and the Institute of Group Analysis. For the last ten years, she has worked as a Consultant Forensic Psychotherapist at Broadmoor Hospital, where she runs psychotherapeutic groups for offenders, and works with staff and organisational dynamics. Gwen also has a Masters' Degree in Medical Law and Ethics; and has a research interest in moral reasoning, and how this links with 'bad' behaviour. Gwen has published a number of books and over 100 papers, book chapters and commissioned articles on forensic psychotherapy, ethics in psychiatry, and attachment theory as applied to medicine and forensic psychiatry.
The Possibility of Religious-Secular Ethical Engagement: Euthanasia. Julian Savulescu and Charles Camosy held two public debates in Michaelmas Term 2012 under the series title 'The Possibility of Religious-Secular Ethical Engagement'.
Julian Savulescu believes that if we can genetically alter the next generation, not only should we be free to do so, it may even turn out that in some circumstances we have an obligation to go ahead and do it. The term 'designer baby' is usually used in a pejorative sense - to conjure up some dystopian Brave New World. There are already ways to affect what kind of children you have - most obviously by choosing the partner to have them with. But there are others too: a pregnant mother can improve her baby's prospects by not smoking, for instance. With advances in genetics, however, there will soon be radical new methods to select or influence the characteristics of your progeny: not just physical characteristics, like height or eye colour, but intellectual capacities, and capacities linked to morality - such as how empathetic the child will be. The big question is how much freedom parents should have to make such selections.
The brain disease model of addiction: Assessing its validity, utility and implications for public policy towards the treatment and prevention of addiction. Genetic and neuroscience research on addiction has been interpreted by leading figures in the USA as demonstrating that addiction is a chronic relapsing brain disease that reflects enduring changes in brain function that are produced by sustained heavy drug use and explain the inability of addicted persons to refrain from using drugs, despite their professed intentions to do so. The brain disease model contrasts starkly with the commonsense view that drug use is a free choice for which individual drug users are responsible. This paper: assesses the evidence and arguments offered in favour of the brain disease model of addiction; assesses the arguments advanced by critics of the model; considers the social and ethical implications of these views in dealing with addicted persons and in formulating public health policies that we should adopt to prevent the harmful use of and addiction to alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs.
Since the terrorist attacks by Islamic militants upon the US and UK in the early 2000s, a host of anti-terrorist measures have been introduced which raise conceptual and ethical issues that have serious implications for practical politics. Since the terrorist attacks by Islamic militants upon the United States (and Great Britain) in the early 2000s, the drive to prevent further such attacks has produced a host of anti-terrorist governmental measures, including new laws and amendments to old ones, torture, wars and military strikes to name but a few. All these raise both conceptual and ethical issues that have serious implications for practical politics, and will be discussed in this seminar. Seminar 3 of 3 in the Series 'The Meaning of Terrorism - philosophical perspectives' Tony Coady is one of Australia's best-known philosophers. He has an outstanding international reputation for his writings on epistemology and on political violence and political ethics. Coady's best-known work, Testimony: a Philosophical Study (OUP, 1992), relates to the epistemological problems posed by testimony. In addition to his academic work, he is a regular contributor to public debate on topics having to do with ethical and philosophical dimensions of current affairs. A professor of philosophy at the University of Melbourne, he has served as the founding director of the Centre for Philosophy and Public Issues and the deputy director of the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) and head of its University of Melbourne division. In 2005, he gave the Uehiro Lectures on practical ethics at Oxford University which were subsequently published in 2008 by Oxford University Press under the title Messy Morality: the Challenge of Politics. His most recent publication is Morality and Political Violence (CUP, 2008).
There is widespread belief that terrorism can never be morally justified, ut this belief is not widespread amongst philosophers; they offer a variety of justifications for some terrorist acts. Seminar 2 of 3 in the Series 'The Meaning of Terrorism - philosophical perspectives' Tony Coady is one of Australia's best-known philosophers. He has an outstanding international reputation for his writings on epistemology and on political violence and political ethics. Coady's best-known work, Testimony: a Philosophical Study (OUP, 1992), relates to the epistemological problems posed by testimony. In addition to his academic work, he is a regular contributor to public debate on topics having to do with ethical and philosophical dimensions of current affairs. A professor of philosophy at the University of Melbourne, he has served as the founding director of the Centre for Philosophy and Public Issues and the deputy director of the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) and head of its University of Melbourne division. In 2005, he gave the Uehiro Lectures on practical ethics at Oxford University which were subsequently published in 2008 by Oxford University Press under the title Messy Morality: the Challenge of Politics. His most recent publication is Morality and Political Violence (CUP, 2008).
Schaefer is currently reading for the B.Phil in Philosophy at Oxford. His interests lie in moral philosophy, especially applied ethics, as well as political philosophy and personal identity and he has a background in research ethics. Human embryonic stem cell research has been a lightning rod of controversy since the first embryonic stem cell lines were derived in 1998. Most of the controversy revolves around the provenance of the lines; the derivation of cells to develop an embryonic stem cell line usually results in destruction of the embryo, which some view as unethical. To alleviate such concerns, US guidelines prohibit federal funding for the derivation of such lines, and only fund further research on embryonic stem cell lines derived from excess embryos created during assisted reproductive treatment - embryos that would otherwise be discarded. Furthermore, the couple seeking assisted reproductive treatment must consent to the use of their excess embryos for stem cell research. However, current regulations do not require egg or sperm donors to give such consent, or even be informed of the potential for embryonic research. This is especially problematic for egg donors, who might have serious objections to stem cell research and therefore decline to go through the burdensome procedure of egg donation had they been informed of the potential research. We sought to determine the extent to which egg donors are in fact informed of potential research on resultant embryos, in the absence of requirements to do so. Sixty-six egg donor consent forms from US IVF clinics that donate at least some excess embryos for research were analyzed. We found that only a minority of donor forms mention the possibility of research, and an even smaller portion mention stem cell research. This can be corrected with the inclusion of succinct, non-technical language in egg donor consent forms.
An introduction to geoengineering, covering the broad range of issues raised by the emergence of climate engineering as a response to climate change. Why geoengineering? What has led us to the point where serious attention is now being paid to the possibility of regulating the Earth's climate system? If the structure of political systems, the power of lobby groups and the influence of denial and evasion have prevented effective measures to reduce carbon emissions, how will these same factors condition the development and possible deployment of climate engineering?
Karanjeet de Feo-Giet's thesis focuses on contemporary Chinese and Indian entertainment films in Mandarin and Hindi and their roles in communicating ideas about identity and Asian-ness today. What is the value of entertainment? Is it necessarily consigned to the category of the frivolous, or can it be transformative? Should entertainment films exist at all in countries with deep social problems? Do film makers in such countries in fact have an ethical and moral obligation to produce films that address these issues without regard for their popularity or palatability? Putting the subject in a global context, this talk will compare some examples of popular and independent cinema in China and India, how they deal with diverse social issues from homosexuality to the role of civil society, and their artistic and commercial reception. The talk considers the influence of ethic and moral judgment in the success or failure of these films both domestically and abroad, their inclusion in film festivals, and types of release. The key question: what does entertainment do, and what is it capable of doing, if anything, for the ethical future of contemporary society? And who decides the ideal ethical framework for popular culture anyway?
David Coady is a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Tasmania. He is the author of What to Believe Now: Applying Epistemology to Contemporary Issues and the editor of Conspiracy Theories: The Philosophical Debate. Rumour and conspiracy theory are closely linked in both the popular imagination and academic debate, with the rumour often portrayed as a vehicle of conspiracy theory. They are also linked inasmuch as they are both typically thought to be bad things. In this paper I will defend rumour and conspiracy theory (along with rumour-mongers and conspiracy theorists) against some of their most prominent critics, and I will argue that campaigns against them are a form of propaganda (or, to be precise, two closely related forms of propaganda).
Santorelli is a research fellow in the Zoology department, University of Oxford. He is interested in investigating the evolution of cooperative behaviors of macro and microorganisms. While discussions of cooperation and conflict are common in the study of animal and human societies, only within the last few decades we have realized that these acts also occur in more primitive, microscopic forms of life, such as amoebae or bacteria. The field of Sociobiology explains and investigates how social behaviour has resulted from evolution. Major focus is now aimed at extrapolating genetic and other experimental evidence from model studies on micro-organisms and insect societies to apply to human cooperation via research on economic-based game theory and evolutionary psychology. Unlike human societies, microbes are incapable of defining complex rules, laws, traditions and morals, yet they still manage to harbor social interactions in many different contexts, such as the division of labour, communication and kin recognition. Studying micro-organisms has given us an insight of what can be the genetic basis of many social behaviours and how cooperation can be stable even in the face of selfishness and cheating
Professor Aurora Plomer is Chair in Law and Bioethics at the University of Sheffield. The paper retraces the historical genesis and philosophical foundations of the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress in international law in order to explore how the right may be adapted to address emerging ethical challenges in "the century of biology".
In this talk, Professor Plomer (Chair in Law and Bioethics, University of Sheffield) argues that, from a legal perspective, the EU ban on hESC patents is seriously flawed. To her knowledge, it is the first ruling of a supranational court conferring legal protection to frozen embryos on the back of legislation formally relating to patents and in disregard of diversity of moral and legal cultures on hESC research in Europe. Professor Plomer argues that the ruling sets a dangerous constitutional precedent and could have profound influences on the direction of future funding policy and research laws in the European Union. See Guardian article http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/dec/12/eu-ban-stem-cell-patents?INTCMP=SRCH
Whose Ethics? Six Principles and Six Guidelines determinative of a superior ethics. Note: due to a technical issue the first ten minutes of the presentation are missing. In this exploratory presentation it will be suggested that perplexing moral dilemmas may be resolved effectively by employing a meta-ethics, consisting of six designated principles, which are multi-dimensional, critical and inclusive, and six theologically informed guidelines. The six principles to be discussed will be concerned with whether one's world view is bounded or unbounded; one's claims and assumptions are questioned or unquestioned; one's method of approach is inclusive or exclusive; one's enquiry is examined both logically and empirically with cross-checks; and whether open, two-way respectful exchange between researchers is followed. The six guidelines designated are transparency, honesty, integrity, truth, compassion and humility. These six factors, though drawn from the Christian concept of "Agape", the Greatest Love in the World, are considered worthwhile to adopt, since they are universal in form and capable of being agreed generally by all, regardless of religious persuasion. Above all, the interest of this paper is to seek valuable feedback from ethicists on thoughts/problems which may appear to stem from definitions/interpretations of religious and non-religious moral values.
Onora O'Neill, formerly principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, has been thinking about the issue of 'trust': trust is vital in most areas of human interaction - but nowhere more so than in health and medicine.
Museum Ethics. The Museum world, like most professions, encounters various ethical problems. This short talk will consider the ethics of conservation and reconstruction, and of human remains, but will mostly discuss ethical problems associated with the acquisition of cultural property from other countries. Archaeologists are particularly concerned that the trade in antiquities leads to the looting of sites, and illegal export of valuable items. How far can British and American museums continue to maintain collections from the great ancient civilisations when they are unable to acquire important recent finds from other countries?
2nd Annual Wellcome Lecture in Neuroethics, given by Professor Jorge Moll on 18th January 2011 on the subject of new evidence for Neural bases for moral sentiments.
Dr Mick Blowfield, Fellow of St Cross College, gives the second St Cross Special Ethics Seminar on The Ethical Challenges of 21st Century Businesses. We enjoy a love-hate relationship with business. We expect it to behave like a sentient ethical being, but some of the demands we make of it would tax any conventional definitions of moral acceptability. The dichotomies that result are becoming even greater because of the challenges of building prosperous economies in the C21 when business confronts the prospect of resource constraints, global governance, and shifts in wealth and demography. In this seminar I explore the new ethical environment that business must not only operate within but will have a significant role in shaping and realising.
Dr Adrian Walsh delivers a St Cross College Lecture entitled Good Intentions and Political Life: Against Virtue Parsimony. It is a commonplace that the good life and the good society are intimately interconnected. In order to maximize our chances of living well, we require a well-ordered polity; and this is one of the fundamental challenges of politics. Typically we regard a good society as, amongst other things, a society that has well designed institutions. One crucial aspect of the 'design challenge' concerns itself with the relationship between individual virtue and such political institutions. Is it is in general a good idea to prefer those institutions that demand from participating individuals a virtue-rich input? [...]
A St Cross Special Ethics Seminar - If we are to avoid annihilation, we must either alter our political institutions, severely restrain our technology or change our nature (22 February 2010).
Scientists have always had to contend with the idea that their research may be misused. The problem, weighing scientific freedom of inquiry against the possibility that research could be used for harm, is known as the 'dual-use dilemma'.
Julian Savulescu and the other Monash Distinguished Alumni discuss how Monash University has influenced their careers.