If such invasive procedures would be deemed unethical for the healthy regardless of consent, then it should be considered wrong to so experiment on the sick.
Read More ›
Do the philosophers not understand how bigoted and anti-intrinsic dignity of life their relativistic assumptions are about when a life is worth continuing?
Read More ›
Effective altruism is a kind of therapy, a type of self-help for the angst-ridden techno-elites trying to grapple with human suffering and limitations.
Read More ›
In our debate I pressed Singer on this issue, asking why he chose those particular capacities, and I was stunned that he could not provide an answer.
Read More ›
This is the kind of thinking that results from rejecting the intrinsic moral value of human life. Princeton University bioethicist Peter Singer — who is most famous for secularly blessing infanticide — just compared abortion to turning off a computer. He first claims that should an AI ever become “sentient,” turning it off would be akin to killing a being with the highest moral value (which for him, as described below, need not be human). From the Yahoo News story: We asked internationally renowned moral philosopher Professor Peter Singer whether AI should have human rights if it becomes conscious of its own existence. While Professor Singer doesn’t believe the ChatGPT operating system is sentient or self-aware, if this was to change he argues it should be given some moral status. Read More ›
In last week’s podcast, “Jonathan Wells on Why a Baby Should Live,” neurosurgeon Michael Egnor interviewed molecular and cell biologist Jonathan Wells on that topic, which he discussed in articles at Evolution News and Science Today: (here and here). It’s becoming a hot topic now that a bill to protect babies born alive from abortions from being killed or left to die was recently defeated in the Senate. There is an academic debate about whether babies, post-birth, have a right to live. Meanwhile, a number of countries are also moving toward child euthanasia, with or without parental consent as well. https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-120-Jonathan-Wells.mp3 A partial transcript follows. This portion begins at 01:13. Show notes and links follow. Michael Egnor: Where did that Read More ›
Why should a baby live? That’s the question that Michael Egnor and Jonathan Wells discuss on today’s episode. Listen in as they cover the philosophical arguments made for abortion and infanticide, the question of personhood, our current understanding of a fetus’ ability to feel pain in the womb, and the future of Roe v. Wade. Show Notes Additional Resources
University of Western Michigan philosophy professor Parker Crutchfield (pictured) recently suggested getting people to take a pill to promote more “pro-social” behavior in order to better fight off COVID-19. He argues that the United States is not equipped for a fight against the disease just by expecting everyone to work together, as in, say, World Wars I and II: It seems that the U.S. is not currently equipped to cooperatively lower the risk confronting us. Many are instead pinning their hopes on the rapid development and distribution of an enhancement to the immune system—a vaccine. But I believe society may be better off, both in the short term as well as the long, by boosting not the body’s ability to Read More ›