Practical Ethics

Silicon dreams: digital drugs and regulation

A new worry has hit parents: digital drugs. The idea is that sounds can affect brain states, so by listening to the right kind of sounds desired brain states can be induced - relaxation, concentration, happiness, PMS relief or why not hallucinations? Apparently "idosers" walk around high on sound. Just the right thing for a summer moral panic - kids, computers, drugs and pseudoscience.

Education and the Fairness of Capital Punishment

Regardless of their views on capital punishment most people desire it to be centred on due process and fairness. But a software experiment, by showing that the likelihood of execution of people on death row can be predicted to high accuracy, paradoxically suggests a great degree of arbitrariness in how the death penalty is applied in the US. A death sentence is essentially a lottery ticket: the condemned will be executed with a certain probability and otherwise suffer a long and uncertain imprisonment. But different convicts get different probability tickets, even when the legal system and all criminal circumstances are the same.

Duck and cover: how expensive does impact safety have to be?

This week is Tunguska week: on June 30 1908 a large meteoroid or comet exploded with the force of 5-30 megatons above the Tunguska River in Russia. The journal Nature celebrates it with several articles about impacts, ranging from a discussion of a controversial meteorite artwork to the confirmation that most of the northern hemisphere of Mars is a gargantuan crater.

From an ethics perspective the most interesting issue is how we should protect ourselves from rare but very destructive events. Had the Tunguska impactor hit an inhabited area it could easily have killed
millions, and larger impacts could imperil our species. But big impacts are rare: how much should we pay to detect and avoid them?

My Genes, not a Doctor's

California has sent cease-and-desist letters to firms offering Web gene tests to consumers. The legal reason is that California law requires a licenced physician to order any lab tests. This follows from a similar crackdown in New York. Wired responds by top 10 reasons that regulators should not hinder genetic testing. Is there any good reason to limit public access to genetic testing besides protecting incumbents and gatekeepers?

Lex Orwell: When is a Surveillance Society OK?

The current Swedish debate about a bill to allow military intelligence to intercept phone and Internet communications has produced something most unSwedish: a grassroots "blogquake" that has upset the staid logic of traditional politics. Given the threat that the bill may fall because of MPs disobeying their party whips (normally unheard of in Swedish politics) there is a real chance the bill is even withdrawn at the last minute. But even if it is, this is an issue that will return again and again: exactly how much information should the government be allowed to gather and for what purposes?

Preventing Polka-Dot Problems: Should Measles Vaccination be Compulsory?

Jim Todd reports about his measles experience at BBC News. A number of years back such a report about how a case of adult measles feels would have been absurd, since so many had suffered it. A few years back it would have been absurd because measles was rare thanks to vaccination. But now, due to a reduction in vaccinations, the risk of measles is rising. Health chiefs in London are stepping up the vaccination program to try to stave off the rising number of cases. The key problem is that in many areas of London only 62% of toddlers have been immunised, compared to the 95% that is needed to achieve herd immunity. Vaccinated people act as firebreaks: if enough people are immune to a disease long chains of infection become improbable, and epidemics do not occur. Given this, should measles vaccination be compulsory?

Brain Boosting and Cheating in Exams: Four Responses

A report by the Academy of Medical Sciences looking at different aspects of drug use and mental health has identified a growing trend for off-label use of drugs intended for the treatment of diseases including narcolepsy, ADHD and Alzheimer’s. The use of such drugs by a healthy individual can improve memory, alertness and concentration. While the report does not condemn the practice, it raises a number of potential concerns over safety, and fairness. Professor Les Iversen, report co-author, highlighted concerns that the use of enhancement in exams would unfairly advantage wealthier students, and suggested that the use of such drugs could be considered cheating. The report recommends that legislation is prepared to tackle the misuse of such drugs, including the potential for urine testing in schools and universities.

Below are responses from Julian Savulescu, Nick Bostrom, Anders Sandberg and Mark Sheehan on the effects of cognitive enhancing drugs, and the issue of cheating

Humane Evolution

Professor John Harris wonders Who’s afraid of a synthetic human? in the Times. He argues we should support the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill because it will help us develop effective therapies and enhance ourselves. Science is about bettering our lot, after all. In particular, he says, synthetic biology may help us avoid going extinct due to our vulnerabilities and instead enable us to choose (or become) our successors as a species.

Many people become confused by the possibility of a posthuman future. The traditional view of the future is a stark one: either humanity extinct, or humans roughly as they are today. The posthuman options would be that we either change ourselves so radically that the resulting species is so  fundamentally different from humanity that we would regard it as something entirely new, or that we create some kind of independent beings that continue our culture even as traditional humanity retires from the forefront (hopefully as proud parents of the new beings). The range of possible options within these scenarios is endless, inviting equally endless and loud speculation. That tends to distract from the key message of Harris’ essay: we are leaving the realm of natural evolution and entering what he calls a realm of enhancement evolution.

A Pipeline to Truth? Fighting Absenteeism with Voice Analysis

The Daily Mail warns that bosses want to use over-the-phone lie detectors to catch out workers pulling a sickie. The issue is the new generation of voice analysis software that listens in when someone calls in sick, and prompts the person talking the call on whether the person is suspiciously stressed. Yet another step towards 1984, a great way of saving money and improving the truthfulness of people, or a double deceit?

Looking for Biopolitical Trouble

Researchers at Cornell university have developed a genetically modified human embryo expressing a green fluorescent protein. This is a technology already demonstrated in animals (and plants), including monkeys. But the news that it had been done to a human embryo has stirred up reactions worrying about designer babies. Are we already in a brave new world of designer babies? And how should we handle the biopolitical debate?