Philosophy & Ethics

There are many different conceptions of God, and endless questions. Credit: Waiting For The Word, CC BY-NC-SA By Graham Oppy, Monash University Disputes about the existence of God — like most disputes about religion, politics, and sex — almost always generate heat but not light. The question of the existence of God seems intractable. As with other philosophical questions, there is no method to follow in seeking to answer it. Moreover, there is no prospect of reaching an agreed answer to it. And the absence of any prospect of reaching an agreed answer to this question goes right to the top:…

Should academics be disciplined by their universities for things said over Twitter? Credit: Opensource.com/ Flickr, CC BY-SA By Janna Thompson, La Trobe University Academic freedom has been put in the spotlight with two universities recently coming down hard on academics for comments on social media. Martin Hirst, a lecturer in journalism, was suspended earlier this year from Australia’s Deakin University for making provocative and obscene comments on Twitter. The university acted after conservative columnist Andrew Bolt drew attention to these tweets in his newspaper column. Hirst was…

It is difficult for pharmaceutical companies to have good public relations in an immediate news and social media world - no matter how many trials are done, people can still have adverse effects or even suffer real harm - and social media detractors can just claim they are corrupt and convince a large segment of their followers.  To make sure the public has as much confidence as possible in new products, all drugs have to undergo exhaustive, time-consuming and expensive testing. When high-profile media events like ebola, which killed 1/13,000th as many Americans this week as heart…

In June of this year, Facebook provoked a widespread public outcry after it became known that it had tried to manipulate the emotions of nearly 700,000 of its users as part of a social “experiment.” At the time, researchers and commentators argued that the research had broken basic ethical guidelines that normally protect individuals from being unknowingly used in this type of research. The Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC) took a more aggressive step and filed a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission asking for sanctions against Facebook that included asking Facebook to make…

Look at a fan rotating its blades. Now look somewhat to the side of it. It seems to rotate slower now. Now shift your gaze slowly back toward the center of the fan. The fan seems to pick up speed. There are not just two appearances of its speed, one fast if I stare at it, and one slow if it is in the periphery of my visual field, but instead the fan seems to pick up speed gradually! Concentrate on one blade, perhaps hear it hit the fan's frame at a certain spot maybe, or count how it returns to the top position perhaps every half a second. How can it seem slower if looking to the side? Such…

In the future, new organs will be created from a patient's own stem cells and they will require no waiting lists, no immunosuppressive drugs, and no stickers on drivers licenses making people available for organ donations. Currently, organ transplantation is "opt in" - you have a choice. A new paper by psychologists examines whether it might be better to have organ donation be opt-out. If most people have a choice, they want to keep it. The developed world is increasingly monitored and controlled by government and freedoms are being limited in everything from food to behavior. The scholars…

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 Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues have teamed up to publish a series of essays to highlight the best practices in teaching bioethics and to identify gaps in our knowledge of how best to inspire and increase moral understanding, analytical thinking in the moral domain, and professional integrity. The first three of these essays, which…

Eyes – windows on the soul?Credit: Ángelo González, CC BY-SA By Tracy Long-Sutehall, University of Southampton Tissue and organ availability for use in transplant operations is influenced by many factors including getting people to register, and the difficult task of discussing donation with those who are recently bereaved. A specific barrier to tissue donation is that so few people are aware of it. There is a lack of knowledge about how it differs from organ donation and also that many more people could donate tissues than organs after their death. Tissues such as eyes, heart valves, skin,…

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 The human animal takes a remarkably long time to reach maturity. And we cram a lot of learning into that time, as well we should: the list of things we need to know by the time we hit adulthood in order to thrive – personally, economically, socially, politically – is enormous. But what about ethical thriving? Do we need to be taught moral philosophy alongside the three Rs? Ethics has now been introduced into New South Wales…

Jennifer Lawrence at the 83rd Academy Awards. CC BY-SA 2.0 By Emma Rees, University of Chester Autonomy is patriarchy’s supreme foe. It suggests self-determination, power, and control, and the “selfie” is a culturally ubiquitous iteration of autonomy. The release onto the internet of hundreds of intimate "selfies" and personal photographs of famous women is most likely the result of someone hacking into Apple’s iCloud storage system, and the FBI’s hunt for the perpetrator (or perpetrators) underscores the gravity of this theft. A troll’s wet dream The prurient “what the butler saw” peeping-…