Philosophy & Ethics

The word morality makes people uneasy – but not ethics. What is the basis of a moral education? Credit: Flood G/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND By Patrick Stokes, Deakin University The human animal takes a…

Jennifer Lawrence at the 83rd Academy Awards. CC BY-SA 2.0 By Emma Rees, University of Chester Autonomy is patriarchy’s supreme foe. It suggests self-determination, power, and control, and the “…

New research on the treatment of 'hardcore' female Mau Mau prisoners by the British in the late 1950s sheds new light on how ideas about gender, deviancy and mental health shaped colonial practices…

Is morality and happiness determined by how you affect the people around you? Credit: Shutterstock By Peter Bowden, University of Sydney It is a word we hear from time to time, but few of us know…

A Liberian nurse disinfects a looted mattress taken from an elementary school that was used as an Ebola isolation unit in West Point, Monrovia, Liberia. AHMED JALLANZO/EPA By Ian Kerridge, University…

Getting informed consent from desperate people and their families for experimental treatments is quite easy. When the latest Ebola outbreak hit, there was criticism that experimental treatments were…

Isaac Asimov's Three Laws Of Robotics, from the story "Runaround" in 1942, are arguably the most famous example of fictional ethics becoming so fundamental they are adopted spontaneously by everyone…

In 312, Roman Emperor Constantine was told in a dream to paint a cross on his army’s shields.[1] Based on that dream, he commanded his generals to slap crosses on pretty much everything. If it went…

     Today is my 43rd birthday. When I was 34 years old, I walked along a narrow river through the city of Nanning in the south of China. I was lonely and depressed, no matter the…

Steve Jobs was a good CEO, a visionary. He was also known as a monster driven to fits of rage and a known SEC law violator who gave himself stock options without bothering to tell anyone. He gave…