Evolution has since the publication of The origin of species (1859) been a source of inspiration, and a bone of contention, not only for biology but also for philosophy and the sciences of man. The moral consequences of Darwinism have been a concern for ethicists since Herbert Spencer elevated the survival of the fittest to a norm underwriting cultural and societal progress—hard for the individ...

which Ronald Dworkin published three decades ago. Though that earlier volume bore a catchier title, Justice in Robes is otherwise similar in being a collection of very loosely related essays on sundry topics in legal, political, and moral philosophy. Both books display Dworkin’s truculent hostility toward legal positivism and his more polite opposition to value-pluralism (namely, the notion tha...

In an earlier essay, we argued that those who grant a special moral status to human embryos cannot consistently refuse to grant a similar moral status to other entities, such as stem cells, that also have the potential to develop into adult humans (Sagan & Singer, 2007). To do so, however, would have absurd implications. In a recent issue of EMBO reports, Robert George and Patrick Lee defended ...

This paper challenges the accepted interpretation of Oedipus Rex, which takes Oedipus’ ignorance of the relevant facts to be an established matter. I argue that Oedipus’ epistemic state is ambiguous, and that this in turn generates a moral ambiguity with respect to his actions. Because ignorance serves as a moral excuse, my demonstration that Oedipus was not ignorant bears significantly on the ...

In a recent paper, Giubilini and Minerva argue for the moral permissibility of what they call 'after-birth abortion', or infanticide. Here I suggest that they actually employ a confusion of two distinct arguments: one relying on the purportedly identical moral status of a fetus and a newborn, and the second giving an independent argument for the denial of moral personhood to infants (independen...

BACKGROUND The debate on the ethical aspects of moral bioenhancement focuses on the desirability of using biomedical as opposed to traditional means to achieve moral betterment. The aim of this paper is to systematically review the ethical reasons presented in the literature for and against moral bioenhancement. DISCUSSION A review was performed and resulted in the inclusion of 85 articles. W...

The authors investigated 7- and 9-year-old children's moral understanding of retaliation as compared to unprovoked aggression with regard to their aggressive behavior status. Based on peer ratings, 48 children were selected as overtly aggressive and 91 as nonaggressive. Their moral understanding of retaliation and unprovoked aggression was assessed by an interview including questions about thei...