Philosophy & Ethics

A guy messes up his life, and the lives of those around him. We send him for rehabilitation: A jail term, AA meetings, community service, anger management classes, or restitution to victims. An…

“Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the…

You don't have to be a jerk to get the right thing done but sometimes out-of-the-box thinking requires some angry evangelism. Yet even legendary jerks like Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison knew you can't…

It's the research that counts. Shutterstock By Ottoline Leyser, University of Cambridge I love my job. I’m trying to understand how plants build themselves out of thin air. It’s exciting, it’s…

You can be a doctor without becoming an American citizen, people move here all of the time and go to medical school. They just do it legally. The US president has used an executive order to…

You might never know that you're hard of thinking. Robin Zebrowski/Flickr, CC BY-NC By Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Bristol and Richard Pancost, University of Bristol It is an unfortunate…

Knockaloe Camp. Stefan Manz By Stefan Manz, Aston University The German-Jewish painter and writer Paul Cohen-Portheim had spent a peaceful summer in 1914 visiting friends in Devon and enjoying the…

This is a commonly used argument, indeed often taken for granted. We can simulate physics on a computer. So, the argument goes, what is to stop us eventually simulating your whole body including your…

Proof of life beyond earth is coming. Stargazing image via Shutterstock By David A. Weintraub, Vanderbilt University How will humankind react after astronomers hand over rock-solid scientific…

Old fashioned scandals meet new-fangled complexity. Andy Dean Photography By Mark Israel, University of Western Australia Social scientists have to get better at recognizing and responding to ethical…