Guest Author • Aug 17, 2021 •
Nick Chater, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick As vaccine uptake starts to wane, stories have began to emerge of people who refused the jab ending up in intensive care, ruing not having had the vaccine, and subsequently dying. These cautionary tales are certainly attention-grabbing, but is it right to publish or broadcast them? If human … Read More
Guest Author • Mar 01, 2018 •
Brendan Markey-Towler, The University of Queensland This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Some initial coin offerings seem like scams (and some are), but behavioural research shows our emotions are part of why people buy in to cryptocurrencies for fruits and vegetables or crypto trading even if cool-headed … Read More
Guest Author • Jun 27, 2016 •
By Dr Carolyn Mason, Lecturer, Philosophy, University of Canterbury A new study published in Science finds that the majority of research participants accept that it is morally right to program autonomous vehicles (AVs) to kill the occupant of the car to save ten pedestrians. As the authors Bonnefon, Shariff and Rahwan point out, this result agrees with utilitarianism, that … Read More
Peter Griffin • Jun 24, 2016 •
Should a car swerve to miss a pedestrian on the road, even if doing so would kill the passenger? What if it was two people on the road? Or ten people? New US research, published in Science, explores this ethical dilemma in a series of surveys, revealing that people generally want automated cars to be utilitarian (i.e. prevent … Read More
Bryan Walker • Apr 22, 2014 •
The combination of a recently acquired desktop video magnifier and a kindle has for the time being restored some ease to my reading. Hence this review. I was drawn by the title The Moral Challenge of Dangerous Climate Change: Values, Poverty and Policy, since I can’t see the resistance to energy reform mounted by powerful […] … Read More
Ken Perrott • Mar 20, 2014 •
Here is another of the 4 animated videos produced by the British Humanist Association. They are all narrated by Stephen Fry. This one deals with aspects of morality – an important subject where the voice of non-theists is often ignored. “What makes something right or wrong?” Narrated by Stephen Fry See: That’s Humanism: Four animated videos about Humanism narrated by … … Continue reading … Read More
Ken Perrott • Feb 04, 2013 •
Fifteen years ago I visited Israel and can vividly remember the sight of a rifle-carrying guard on a bus full of school children in the north-east. It brought home to me the reality of religious and political extremism which can … Continue reading → … Read More
Ken Perrott • Jan 23, 2013 •
Credit: Descartes Centre It’s no secret philosophers and scientists sometimes seem to be in conflict. I’m not talking about philosophers of religion (there are epistemological grounds for an inevitable conflict with science there). No, I mean philosophers in general. And … Continue reading → … Read More
Ken Perrott • Dec 18, 2012 •
I am working my way through the videos of the discussions at the Moving Naturalism Forward Workshop (see At last – Moving Naturalism Forward videos). I really appreciate these philosophical and scientific discussions because they aren’t weighed down, or diverted, by … Continue reading → … Read More
Ken Perrott • Nov 19, 2012 •
Book review: Can Animals Be Moral? by Mark Rowlands Price: US$29.95; NZ42.99 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (November 1, 2012) ISBN-10: 0199842000 ISBN-13: 978-0199842001 Interested readers need to know – this is a book about philosophy, not … Continue reading → … Read More