The ethics of anti-love biotechnology — a topic little discussed in some circles — are chewed over in a special issue (volume 13, issue 11, 2013) of the American Journal of Bioethics. Among the articles there that you might love to read or not to read: The Difficult Case of Voluntariness as Autonomy in Anti-Love […]
Tag: ethics
Accounting simplified, by Simon Rippon
Accounting — taking account of things — can be more pleasing if you don’t take account of some of the things. Here’s an example of that principle. Simon Rippon, former International Editor and European Editor of the publication Nuclear News, wrote an essay in their July 2009 issue. He explained that the public did not […]
The Influence of Time of Day on Unethical Behavior
What time is it? That simple question gains new meaning in this study: “The Morning Morality Effect: The Influence of Time of Day on Unethical Behavior,” Maryam Kouchaki [pictured here] and Isaac H. Smith, Psychological Science, epub October 28, 2013. (Thanks to investigator Cheryl Isley for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Harvard […]
Abusing robots – current positions [part 4 of 4]
Given that various groups of academic researchers (and others) are already investigating the torture of robots, and that these procedures raise ethical questions [See previous posts on this topic.] We now turn to the question of how robots might express the levels of ‘pain’ to which they are exposed. Clearly they must be able to […]
Abusing robots – current positions [part 2 of 4]
Continuing the discussion regarding the abuse of robots we turn now to a recent lift research workshop conducted in Geneva, Switzerland, entitled – ‘Harming and Protecting Robots : Robotic Dinosaur Abuse’. Kate Darling (who is a ‘research specialist’ at MIT’s Media Lab) and Hannes Gassert (who is a ‘technology activist’ ) presented the workshop in which […]
Abusing robots – current positions [part 1 of 4]
“The shocks are becoming too much.” “Please, please stop.” “My circuits cannot handle the voltage.” “I refuse to go on with the experiment.” “That was too painful, the shocks are hurting me.” The dialogue above may remind readers of Stanley Milgram’s disturbing (and now-classic) psychology experiments on authority and obedience (1963). But there’s a difference. […]
Dead in one country, but still alive in another
“Apparently a patient can be dead in one country, but still alive in another, under the same circumstances,” writes Dr. Erwin Kompanje of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, in his essay “How dead is a brain dead patient?” BONUS (for philosophers): The Shrödinger’s Cat paradox is not exactly analogous to this, but also is not exactly not.
Dead co-authors (1)
The Anole Annals (which are ‘written and edited by scientists who study Anolis lizards’) posed an intriguing question: “how far one could take posthumous co-authorship. What’s stopping me from including Darwin as a co-author on my next manuscript?” In the paper that triggered this dilemma — Poe et al. (2009) — Poe and his still living co-author […]
Do ethicists steal more books (and stuff)?
“One might suppose that ethicists would behave with particular moral scruple,” begins the little monograph, looking you straight in the eye while snorting and grinning, textily. The two co-authors, philosophy professors who specialise in ethics, thus embark on what they call a “preliminary investigation” of their fellow ethics experts. Eric Schwitzgebel of the University of […]
The ethics of eating a drug-company donut
Philosophy and medicine join forces because of a donut, in the study: “The ethics of eating a drug-company donut,” Karl Broznitsky, Canadian Medical Association Journal, 1996 March 15; 154(6): 899–900. It concludes with this passage: “He bit into the donut, as content with his rationalization as his staffmen were with theirs. A blob of grape […]