Ethics
Spinoza on how to stop living a substandard life
Who is the most controversial philosopher?
Enough moral relativism: some cultures are worse than others
Do right and wrong depend on culture, or does morality transcend place and time?
The other moral in Frankenstein and how to apply it to human brains and reanimated pigs
Some neurology experiments — such as growing miniature human brains and reanimating the brains of dead pigs — are getting weird. It's time to discuss ethics.
How humans came to rely on the kindness of strangers
For the ancients, hospitality was an inviolable law enforced by gods and priests and anyone else with the power to make you pay dearly for mistreating a stranger.
Zoo ethics: free-range prisons or centers for global conservation?
The ethical debate over zoos is going to grow louder. There might be a solution that involves robots.
COVID and “gain of function” research: should we create monsters to prevent them?
Gain-of-function mutation research may help predict the next pandemic — or, critics argue, cause one.
Aristotle’s guide to the elderly and ancient Greek wisdom
The wise, the old, and the experienced matter to a full and happy life.
If there is no God, can anything be objectively good?
Apart from divine authority, is there an ethical basis for right and wrong?
Ethical hacking: saving society with computer code
As a form of civil disobedience, hacking can help make the world a better place.
Is it ethical to pay people to get vaccinated?
It could lead to a massive uptake in those previously hesitant.
Greed and the philosophy of wealth
When does a healthy desire for wealth morph into greed? And how can we stop it?
Electric eels and gladiator blood: the curious beginnings of modern medicine
Hippocrates overturned conventional wisdom and invented modern medicine.
Mixing human + animal DNA and the future of gene editing
"The question is which are okay, which are not okay."
Changing a brain to save a life: how far should rehabilitation go?
What's the difference between brainwashing and rehabilitation?
Are lab–grown embryos and human hybrids ethical?
This spring, a U.S. and Chinese team announced that it had successfully grown, for the first time, embryos that included both human and monkey cells.
The power of conformity: How good people do evil things
Many people believe that in the face of profound evil, they would have the courage to speak up. It might be harder than we think.
Just how useful is human gene editing?
In the near-term, gene editing is not likely to be useful. Even in the long-term, it may not be very practical.
Who’s listening? Inside the voice-profiling revolution
Do you sound friendly? Hostile? And which voice would be more likely to buy something?
The birth of childhood: A brief history of the European child
Did the 20th century bring a breakthrough in how children are treated?
Moral enhancement explained: Can science make us better people?
Could a pill make you more moral? Should you take it if it could?
CRISPR: Can we control it?
The potential of CRISPR technology is incredible, but the threats are too serious to ignore.
Moral and economic lessons from Mario Kart
The design of a classic video game yields insights on how to address global poverty.
Pigs proven intelligent enough to play video games
They did really well considering joysticks are not designed for oral use.
‘Designer baby’ book trilogy explores the moral dilemmas humans may soon create
How would the ability to genetically customize children change society? Sci-fi author Eugene Clark explores the future on our horizon in Volume I of the "Genetic Pressure" series.
Should law enforcement be using AI and cell phone data to find rioters?
The attack on the Capitol forces us to confront an existential question about privacy.