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822Implants and Ethnocide: learning from the Cochlear implant controversyDisability and Society 25 (4): 455-466. 2010.This paper uses the fictional case of the ‘Babel fish’ to explore and illustrate the issues involved in the controversy about the use of cochlear implants in prelinguistically deaf children. Analysis of this controversy suggests that the development of genetic tests for deafness poses a serious threat to the continued flourishing of Deaf culture. I argue that the relationships between Deaf and hearing cultures that are revealed and constructed in debates about genetic testing are themselves dese…Read more
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720Killer robotsJournal of Applied Philosophy 24 (1). 2007.The United States Army’s Future Combat Systems Project, which aims to manufacture a “robot army” to be ready for deployment by 2012, is only the latest and most dramatic example of military interest in the use of artificially intelligent systems in modern warfare. This paper considers the ethics of a decision to send artificially intelligent robots into war, by asking who we should hold responsible when an autonomous weapon system is involved in an atrocity of the sort that would normally be de…Read more
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114The Competition of Ideas: Market or Garden?Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 4 (2): 45-58. 2001.The ‘marketplace of ideas’ is an influential metaphor with widespread currency in debates about freedom of speech. We explore a number of ways competition between ideas might be described as occurring in a marketplace and find that none support the use of the metaphor. We suggest that an alternative metaphor, that of the ‘garden of ideas’, may offer more productive insights into issues surrounding the regulation of speech.
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83History and collective responsibilityAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 78 (3). 2000.In this paper I will argue that contemporary non-Aboriginal Australians can collectively be held responsible for past injustices committed against the Aboriginal peoples of this land. An examination of the role played by history in determining the nature of the present reveals both the temporal extension of the Australian community that confronts the question of responsibility for historical injustice and the ways in which we continue to participate in those same injustices. Because existing inj…Read more
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207Terraforming, vandalism and virtue ethicsIn Jai Galliott (ed.), Commercial Space Exploration: Ethics, Policy and Governance, Ashgate. pp. 161-178. 2015.‘Terraforming’ is hypothetical climatic and geo-physical engineering of other planets on a grand scale, with the aim of turning the so-called ‘barren’ planets in our (or for that matter another) solar system into habitable earth-like eco-systems. Although terraforming sounds like an idea from science fiction (where it indeed has appeared), it has been seriously proposed as a future project for the human race. With such a technology we could colonise the solar system and perhaps eventually others…Read more
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292Drones, courage, and military cultureIn George R. Jr Lucas (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Military Ethics, Routledge. pp. 380-394. 2015.In so far as long-range tele-operated weapons, such as the United States’ Predator and Reaper drones, allow their operators to fight wars in what appears to be complete safety, thousands of kilometres removed from those whom they target and kill, it is unclear whether drone operators either require courage or have the opportunity to develop or exercise it. This chapter investigates the implications of the development of tele-operated warfare for the extent to which courage will remain central t…Read more
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15The Dead Donor Rule and Means-End Reasoning - A Reply to NapierCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 21 (1): 141-146. 2012.
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43Beyond Humanity? The Ethics of Biomedical Enhancement – By A. Buchanan (review)Journal of Applied Philosophy 29 (2): 160-162. 2012.
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |