Uehiro Oxford Institute

The trolley problem is a thought experiment in ethics. Outside traditional philosophical discussion, the trolley problem has been a significant feature in the fields of cognitive science and neuroethics. You have been set the following trolley problem by a villain. There is a central track, called CONTINUE. If you do nothing, the trolley will continue down this track, and kill whomever is at the end of it, then stop. Part way along the line, there is a junction, with a lever. If you pull that lever, then the trolley will go down one of two tracks - STOP and LOOP. If it goes down STOP, then it stops, killing whoever is at the end of the line (if anyone). If it goes down LOOP, it returns to the start of the track, killing whoever is on LOOP, and leading to the trolley returning to the junction. The lever determining which way the trolley will go is probabilistic, and the villain controls the probabilities. The villain also controls how many people are tied to the tracks, and which tracks they are tied to. Importantly, if the trolley goes down LOOP, killing whoever is on there, then the villain will replace those victims with fresh ones. This paper, animated by a concern that deontological theorists have trouble accommodating ignorance and uncertainty into our theories, develops a broadly deontological approach to iterated, probabilistic decision problems like this one.

Geoengineering, as a response to climate change, raises serious ethical and socio-political issues. Drawing on the latest developments in philosophy and ethics of technology and science, I consider a post-humanist way of analysing such issues. Along with mitigation and adaptation, geoengineering, i.e. "the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change" has become increasingly visible as a third option in response to anthropogenic climate change. Yet, it has also been widely acknowledged that geoengineering - whether its research and development or implementation - will raise serious ethical, socio-political and legal issues. Instead of examining specific ethical issues in the ethics of geoengineering, I shall argue for a specific approach to ethics of geoengineering. Drawing from the latest developments in philosophy and ethics of technology and science and technology studies (STS), I outline a post-humanist virtue ethics, which, I believe, offers an alternative way to analyse ethical issues raised by geoengineering.My argument is based on the view that geoengineering should be understood as large technical systems (LTSs), i.e. large infrastructural and production systems. If such an understanding of geoengineering as LTS is correct, then it immediately raises two problems with the ethical analyses that focus on the decisions about (or, decision-making procedures for) and/or outcomes of geoengineering: firstly, the high degree of uncertainty with respect to the outcomes from LTSs, which is especially true in the case of geoengineering, has challenged the ethical analyses which based their judgments on the outcomes from LTSs. Secondly, as Susan Leigh Starr notes, "[b]ecause infrastructure is big, layered, and complex, and because it means different things locally, it is never changed from above. Changes take time and negotiation, and adjustment with other aspects of the systems are involved. Nobody is really in charge of infrastructure"; Starr's remark highlights the insignificance of individuals' decisions (and intentions) in the context of LTSs. Against this background, Brad Allenby proposes "macroethics" as a different level of ethics that takes systems as the unit of ethical reflection, and focus on the process in LTS's research and development and implementation. Allenby's call for a macroethics, I think, echoes on one hand with a recent shift towards a more distributed sense of morality, and on the other hand a shift towards ethics of design. Here, I argue that virtue ethics provide the best theoretical and normative underpinning of macroethics. Epitomised by the question "how should we live?" - instead of "what is the right decisions and-or actions?" or "what is the best consequence?", virtue ethics is particularly fitting as an ethics for processes. The obstacle for adopting virtue ethics in ethical analyses of geoengineering (or, any LTS), however, is that virtue ethics is largely humanist, and therefore it seems to be inapplicable to LTS such as geoengineering. Yet, I argue that an extension of agency to nonhuman entities in recent research in philosophy and ethics of technology (e.g. Luciano Floridi and Peter-Paul Verbeek) and STS (e.g. Bruno Latour) provides us a valuable opportunity to reconceptualise virtue ethics and develop a virtue-theoretical approach to geoengineering.

In this talk, I argue that non-therapeutic circumcision of infants is unethical, whether performed for reasons of obtaining possible future health benefits, for reasons of cultural transmission, or for reasons of perceived religious obligation. In this talk, I argue that the non-therapeutic circumcision of infant males is unethical, whether it is performed for reasons of obtaining possible future health benefits, for reasons of cultural transmission, or for reasons of perceived religious obligation. I begin with the premise that it should be considered morally impermissible to sever healthy, functional genital tissue from another person's body without first asking for, and then actually receiving, that person's informed consent-otherwise, this action would qualify as a criminal assault. I then raise a number of possible exceptions to this rule, to see whether they could reasonably serve to justify the practice of infant male circumcision in certain cases. First, what if it could be established that the risk of contracting certain diseases might be diminished by removing a person's foreskin in infancy, as is often suggested in the United States? Second, what if circumcision could be shown to reduce the spread of AIDS in African populations with high transmission rates of HIV? Third, what if the infant's parents believed that they had a cultural or a religious obligation to remove the foreskin from his penis before he was old enough to give his consent? After discussing the merits of these considerations as possible "exceptions" to the ethical premise with which I will have begun my talk, I go on to conclude that they do not present compelling justifications for circumcision before the boy is old enough to understand what is at stake in such a surgery and to decide for himself whether he would like to part with his own foreskin. I conclude with a discussion of the similarities and differences between male and female forms of genital cutting, and I argue that anyone who is committed to the view that infant male circumcision is morally permissible must also accept the moral permissibility of some (though not all) forms of female genital cutting. However, as I argue, neither type of cutting should be allowed absent clear consent of the individual and/or strict medical necessity.

The speaker proposes a four-step account of action, within which only two of the four steps benefit from the subject's attention, revealing a potential disconnect between the subject of experience and the morally responsible agent. There is a tendency to think of action as a relatively high-level concept, minimally requiring the input of the experiencing subject through the subject's attention. To account for the known effects of practice and skill, I propose instead a four-step account of action, within which only two of the four steps benefit from the subject's attention. This account reveals a potential disconnect between the subject of experience and the morally responsible agent. This disconnect allows for praise and blame (i.e. moral responsibility) in cases where the subject is unaware of his or her action, which I will discuss through a couple of examples.

Exploring different ways in which the metaphysics of religious world views can be used in justifications of violence, this talk concentrates on appeals to the importance of the afterlife to justify violence. Much has been written about the relationship between religion and violence, and much of what has been written is aimed at trying to determine whether, how and why religion causes violence. In my forthcoming book The Justification of Religious Violence (Wiley-Blackwell), I pursue a different goal, which is to understand if and how religion can be used to justify violence. Followers of many different religions, who commit violent acts, seek to justify these by appealing to religion. I argue that religious believers are able to incorporate premises, grounded in the metaphysics of religious world views, in arguments for the conclusion that this or that violent act is justified.

The lecture describes why financial theory and teaching has ignored ethics, viewing moral values as irrelevant. We trace the reason for the neglect of ethics back to assumptions made by Modern Finance Theory, the en courant theory in finance. The neo-classical assumption that economic agents are rational profit maximizers has, over decades, become uncritically accepted as the norm and the truth about people's economic behavior in western-style capitalist economies. The lecture demonstrates how economic agents are assumed to be rational profit maximizing individuals has become the ethic i.e., economic agents ought to be rational, profit maximizing individuals. This resulting ethic is an impoverished value system, inadequate for an increasingly complex, global financial system. Modern finance theory is no more a complete version of truth than is Marxist dialectical materialism, or postmodernist deconstructionism. If a theory (MFT) can demobilize ethics in finance, then a theory also can activate ethics in finance. We need to add to the current popular theory of finance i.e. MFT so that it includes principles of both finance and ethics. One way to develop a new theory is to synthesize the three extant financial theories - the still dominant Modern Finance Theory; the emerging theory of behavioral finance; and the still inchoate theory of Islamic finance. Each of the three theories has its own strengths and focuses on one aspect of economic reality. Modern finance theory is robust on economic and quantitative modeling and forecasting. Behavioral finance describes and takes into account the human psychological basis of decision making in financial markets. Islamic finance theory is unapologetically directed by ethical values. Islamic finance focuses on finance as it is useful in supporting and helping the growth and development of the community and its people. Is it possible to have a financial theory that is the synthesis of the three perspectives of finance?

In this talk we first argue that the reactive attitudes originate in very fast non-voluntary processes involving constant facial feedback. In the second part we examine the supposed constitutive relation between the reactive attitudes and responsibility. This talk explores the connections between the folk psychological project of interpretation, the reactive attitudes and responsibility. The first section argues that the reactive attitudes originate in very fast and to a significant extent, non-voluntary processes involving constant facial feedback. These processes allow for smooth interaction between participants and are important to the interpretive practices that ground intimate relationships as well as to a great many less intense interactions. We will examine cases of facial paralysis (Moebius Syndrome and Botox studies) to support the argument that when these processes are interrupted or impaired, the interpretive project breaks down and social relationships suffer. But do failures of interpretation lead, as Strawson suggests, to the suspension of the reactive attitudes relevant to responsibility assessments? We suggest that in many important instances they do not. Here we consider the cases of children who murder, alien cultures, and psychopaths. In the second part we examine the supposed constitutive relation between the reactive attitudes and responsibility.

Nutt argues that there are serious ethical implications for a simplistic prohibitionist approach to drugs and suggests alternative strategies that might be used. The use of the law to control drug use is long established though still unproven in efficacy. Although seemingly obvious that legal interdictions should work there is little evidence to support this assertion. So for example cannabis though illegal is at some time used by nearly half of the population. Similarly drugs like ecstasy and amfetamine are widely used by up to a million young people each weekend. This use is underpinned by a demand for the pleasurable experiences that the drugs produce, and also by a paradoxical desire by some people to break the law. As well as being ineffective for many users prohibition of drugs often leads to perverse magnification of harms and drug use. When the "English" approach to heroin use (prescription to addicts) was abolished in the 1970s on moral grounds heroin use increased tenfold in a few years as addicts were forced to become dealers so getting more people addicted to fuel their income. The banning of alcohol in the 1920s in the USA lead to huge criminal expansion of alcohol sales the perpetrators of which turned to other drugs once prohibition was repealed: a legacy that we still experience today. Moreover the un-scientific and arbitrary distinct between legal drugs particularly alcohol and tobacco and "illegal" drugs also has perverse negative consequences. As well as bringing the scientific foundation of the drug laws into disrepute it also precludes the use of possibly life-changing drugs for those who might benefit from them as treatments: examples of these include cannabis for Multiple sclerosis, MDMA [ecstasy] for PTSD and psilocybin for cluster headaches.

Associate Professor Rob Sparrow (Monash) and PhD student Chris Gyngell (ANU) present talks on the topic of human enhancement. Rob Sparrow on 'Enhancement and Obsolescence: Avoiding An "Enhanced Rat Race"': A claim about continuing technological progress plays an essential, if unacknowledged, role in the philosophical literature on "human enhancement". Advocates for enhancement typically point to the rapid progress being made in the development of biotechnologies, information technology, and nanotechnology as evidence that we will soon be able to achieve significant improvements on normal human capacities through applications of these technologies. In this paper, I will argue that - should it eventuate - continuous improvement in enhancement technologies may prove more bane than benefit. A rapid increase in the power of available enhancements would mean that each cohort of enhanced individuals will find itself in danger of being outcompeted by the next in competition for important social goods - a situation I characterise as an 'enhanced rat race'. Rather than risk the chance of being rendered technologically and socially obsolete by the time one is in one's early 20s, it may be rational to prefer that a wide range of enhancements that would generate positional disadvantages that outweigh their absolute advantages be prohibited altogether. The danger of an enhanced rat race therefore constitutes a novel argument in favour of abandoning the pursuit of certain sorts of enhancements. Chris Gyngell on 'Stocking the Genetic Supermarket: Genetic Enhancements and Collective Action Problems': In the near future parents may be able to directly alter the genetic make-up of their children using genetic engineering technologies (GETs). A popular model that has been proposed for regulating access to GETs is the 'genetic supermarket'. In the genetic supermarket parents are free to make decisions about which genes to select for their children with little state interference. One possible consequence of the genetic supermarket is that 'collective action problems' will arise. The combined result of individuals using the market to pursue self-interested gains may have a negative effect on society as a whole, and on future generations. In this paper I look at whether GETs targeting height, innate immunity, and certain cognitive traits would lead to collective action problems if available in the genetic supermarket. I argue that that the widespread availability of GETs targeting height are unlikely to lead to genuine collective action problems, but that those targeting innate immunity and aspects of our cognition, could. I then briefly discuss some implications of this claim for the regulation of GETs.

Self-harm using poison is a serious public health problem in Sri Lanka. As part of an effort to tackle the problem, clinical trials are used to identify effective antidotes. This talk describes the conduct of trials in this unusual and difficult context. Based on ethnographic material collected in rural hospitals in Sri Lanka between 2008 and 2009, this talk outlines three subject positions crucial to understanding the complexity of such clinical trials. At one level, research participants who have taken poison might be thought of as abjects, that is, stigmatised by actions that have placed them at the very limits of physical and social life. They have seriously harmed themselves in an act that often leads to death, marking the act as a suicide. Yet, this is the point when they are recruited into trials and become objects of research and experimentation. Participation in experimental research accords them particular rights mandated in international ethical guidelines for human subject research. Here the inexorable logic of trials and morality of care meet in circumstances of dire emergency and in such contexts, we argue, (bio)ethics is precarious.