Tuesday 26 July 2011

To lie or not lie?


By: The OpenLearn team (The Open University), Professor Timothy Chappell (The Open University)
A lie’s a lie, right? But what if it wasn’t that simple? This game makes you think about your moral responses to different lies, test it here

Philosophical consultant and copywriter: Professor Tim Chappell

Credits: Spartacus clip - used under 'crit and review'. The content must be kept within the context of the interactive at all times.

Photos: Getty images and PA Image

Saturday 23 July 2011

After the Apocalypse


Here is the synopsis:
During the Soviet era, the people of Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan were used as human guinea pigs in the testing of nuclear weapons. Today they live with the consequences. Whilst sheep graze in radioactive bomb craters, many in the population believe that the testing is the reason why one in twenty children are born with birth defects. Dr Toleukhan Nurmagambetov, the boss of the city's maternity clinic, wants to introduce a genetic passport which will prevent those with suspect genes from giving birth.

Bibigul -- a local woman from the test-site -- is pregnant and her "defected and frightful" face arouses the suspicion of local medical staff. Nurmagambetov labels her a genetic failure. He implores Bibigul to get tested and abort the child who he fears will be born disabled, but Bibigul refuses to give up her dream of becoming a mother

This superberb documentary is now available to watch in youtube thanks to 4oD

It raises many questions: The Ethics of war and how the country treats its on citizens; the effects of weapons of mass destructions; the effects of nuclear armaments; medical ethics: the right to be born, the right of maternity; genetic discrimination & eugenics and the classical moral & ethical dylemmas: free choice or predetermination? Quality of life or sanctity of life?

Monday 18 July 2011

Existencial Star Wars


Existentialism: Existential philosophy, existentialist philosophy ((philosophy) a 20th-century philosophical movement chiefly in Europe; assumes that people are entirely free and thus responsible for what they make of themselves) Read more here

Wednesday 13 July 2011

Bio Ethics with Peter Singer

Thanks to Bio-Ethics site, you can listen to great interview to Professor Singer about Euthanasia. Click in his name and listen to the interview. I copied what was available on the website of Oxford Center for Neuroethics. If you want to visit the website click here and you also can receive updates from BBC Open Univeristy Ethics podcasts, click here 
PETER SINGER (MP3) - Life and Death
If a patient decides she doesn’t want to live any longer, should she be allowed to die? Should she be allowed to kill herself? If a patient is no person to decide – perhaps she’s in a coma – then should somebody else be able to decide to kill her? Who? Is there a moral difference between killing and allowing someone to die? And is the role of the doctor always to prolong life? Peter Singer, of Princeton University, is one of the world’s leading bio-ethicists, and has been reflecting on life and death issues for four decades.
Peter Singer
Peter Singer was born in Melbourne, Australia, on July 6, 1946, and educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford. He has taught at the University of Oxford, La Trobe Uni-versity and Monash University. Since 1999 he has been Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. From 2005, he has also held the part-time position of Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne, in the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. Peter Singer first became well-known internationally after the publication of Animal Liberation in 1975. Since then he has written, co-authored, edited or co-edited more than 40 other books, including Practical Ethics; The Expanding Circle; How Are We to Live?, Rethinking Life and Death, The Ethics of What We Eat (with Jim Mason) and most recently, The Life You Can Save. His works have appeared in more than 20 languages. He is the author of the major article on Ethics in the current edition of the Encylopaedia Britannica. Two collections of his writings have been published: Writings on an Ethical Life, which he edited, and Unsanctifying Human Life, edited by Helga Kuhse, and also two collections of critical essays, with responses: Singer and Critics, edited by Dale Jamieson, and Peter Singer Under Fire, edited by Jeffrey Schaler. Outside academic life, Peter Singer is a member of the Leadership Council of Oxfam America, a Vice-President of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (UK),and a member of the Advisory Board of GiveWell.net. In 2005 Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.