Philosophy & Ethics

Suicide For Birthday Best Present Ever

     Today is my 43 rd birthday. When I was 34 years old, I walked along a narrow river through the city of Nanning in the south of China. I was lonely and depressed, no matter the PhD degree I had recently obtained, my freedom, the beauty all around, the ...

Article - Sascha Vongehr - Jul 18 2014 - 5:15pm

No One Expects The Organics Inquisition

In 312, Roman Emperor Constantine was told in a dream to paint a cross on his army’s shields. [1] Based on that dream, he commanded his generals to slap crosses on pretty much everything. If it went into battle, it had a cross on it. And lo, when his army ...

Article - Norm Benson - Jul 30 2014 - 11:57am

Asimov’s Three Laws Of Robotics Get A 21st Century Health Care Update

Isaac Asimov's Three Laws Of Robotics, from the story "Runaround" in 1942, are arguably the most famous example of fictional ethics becoming so fundamental they are adopted spontaneously by everyone in an industry that hadn't even been ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 15 2014 - 10:26pm

In The Age Of Informed Consent, How To Test Experimental Ebola Drugs Fairly?

Getting informed consent from desperate people and their families for experimental treatments is quite easy. ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 24 2014 - 6:30pm

Epidemic Ethics: Four Lessons From The Current Ebola Outbreak

A Liberian nurse disinfects a looted mattress taken from an elementary school that was used as an Ebola isolation unit in West Point, Monrovia, Liberia. AHMED JALLANZO/EPA By Ian Kerridge, University of Sydney and Lyn Gilbert, University of Sydney ...

Article - The Conversation - Aug 26 2014 - 8:00am

Ethno-Psychiatry: How The British Treated "Hardcore" Women In The Mau Mau Rebellion

New research on the treatment of 'hardcore' female Mau Mau prisoners by the British in the late 1950s sheds new light on how ideas about gender, deviancy and mental health shaped colonial practices of punishment. The treatment of the Mau Mau by t ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 31 2014 - 1:00pm

Misogyny Wins With Hacking Of Intimate Celebrity Pictures – But You Can Choose Not To Look

Jennifer Lawrence at the 83rd Academy Awards. CC BY-SA 2.0 By Emma Rees, University of Chester ...

Article - The Conversation - Sep 2 2014 - 2:00pm

We Don’t Need No (moral) Education? 5 Things You Should Learn About Ethics

The word morality makes people uneasy – but not ethics. What is the basis of a moral education? Credit: Flood G/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND By Patrick Stokes, Deakin University ...

Article - The Conversation - Sep 7 2014 - 9:01pm

More People Can Donate Tissue Than Organs – So Why Do We Know So Little About It?

Eyes – windows on the soul?Credit: Ángelo González, CC BY-SA By Tracy Long-Sutehall, University of Southampton ...

Article - The Conversation - Sep 9 2014 - 2:30am

In The 21st Century, Bioethics Literacy Matters

From government control of health care to new reproductive technologies in this century, we'll need to be able identify key issues, articulate their values and concerns, deliberate openly and find ways forward. The Hastings Center and the Presidentia ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 17 2014 - 4:30pm