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46If People Were Movies? Free Speech and Free AssociationJournal of Political Philosophy 24 (2): 227-244. 2015.
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84Gender Eugenics? The Ethics of PGD for Intersex ConditionsAmerican Journal of Bioethics 13 (10). 2013.This article discusses the ethics of the use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis to prevent the birth of children with intersex conditions/disorders of sex development , such as congenital adrenal hyperplasia and androgen insensitivity syndrome . While pediatric surgeries performed on children with ambiguous genitalia have been the topic of intense bioethical controversy, there has been almost no discussion to date of the ethics of the use of PGD to reduce the prevalence of these conditions. I …Read more
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283Talkin' 'bout a (nanotechnological) revolutionIEEE Technology and Society 27 (2): 37-43. 2008.It is often claimed that the development of nanotechnology will constitute a “technological revolution” with profound social, economic, and political consequences. The full implications of this claim can best be understood by imagining a scenario in which a political revolutionary made all the same claims that are commonly made by enthusiasts for nanotechnology. I argue that most people would be outraged to learn that the members of an unelected group were planning to radically reshape society i…Read more
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331Can machines be people? Reflections on the Turing triage testIn Patrick Lin, Keith Abney & George A. Bekey (eds.), Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics, Mit Press. pp. 301-315. 2011.In, “The Turing Triage Test”, published in Ethics and Information Technology, I described a hypothetical scenario, modelled on the famous Turing Test for machine intelligence, which might serve as means of testing whether or not machines had achieved the moral standing of people. In this paper, I: (1) explain why the Turing Triage Test is of vital interest in the context of contemporary debates about the ethics of AI; (2) address some issues that complexify the application of this test; and, (3)…Read more
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214Twenty seconds to comply: Autonomous weapon systems and the recognition of surrenderInternational Law Studies 91 699-728. 2015.Would it be ethical to deploy autonomous weapon systems (AWS) if they were unable to reliably recognize when enemy forces had surrendered? I suggest that an inability to reliably recognize surrender would not prohibit the ethical deployment of AWS where there was a limited window of opportunity for targets to surrender between the launch of the AWS and its impact. However, the operations of AWS with a high degree of autonomy and/or long periods of time between release and impact are likely to re…Read more
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145Building a better warbot: Ethical issues in the design of unmanned systems for military applicationsScience and Engineering Ethics 15 (2): 169-187. 2009.Unmanned systems in military applications will often play a role in determining the success or failure of combat missions and thus in determining who lives and dies in times of war. Designers of UMS must therefore consider ethical, as well as operational, requirements and limits when developing UMS. I group the ethical issues involved in UMS design under two broad headings, Building Safe Systems and Designing for the Law of Armed Conflict, and identify and discuss a number of issues under each o…Read more
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16Therapeutic Cloning and Reproductive LibertyJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 34 (2): 102-118. 2009.Concern for “reproductive liberty” suggests that decisions about embryos should normally be made by the persons who would be the genetic parents of the child that would be brought into existence if the embryo were brought to term. Therapeutic cloning would involve creating and destroying an embryo, which, if brought to term, would be the offspring of the genetic parents of the person undergoing therapy. I argue that central arguments in debates about parenthood and genetics therefore suggest tha…Read more
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261Predators or Ploughshares? Arms Control of Robotic WeaponsIEEE Technology and Society 28 (1): 25-29. 2009.This paper makes the case for arms control regimes to govern the development and deployment of autonomous weapon systems and long range uninhabited aerial vehicles.
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45Orphaned at conception: The uncanny offspring of embryosBioethics 26 (4): 173-181. 2012.A number of advances in assisted reproduction have been greeted by the accusation that they would produce children ‘without parents’. In this paper I will argue that while to date these accusations have been false, there is a limited but important sense in which they would be true of children born of a reproductive technology that is now on the horizon. If our genetic parents are those individuals from whom we have inherited 50% of our genes, then, unlike in any other reproductive scenario, chil…Read more
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34“Hands up Who Wants to Die?”: Primoratz on Responsibility and Civilian Immunity in WartimeEthical Theory and Moral Practice 8 (3): 299-319. 2005.The question of the morality of war is something of an embarrassment to liberal political thinkers. A philosophical tradition which aspires to found its preferred institutions in respect for individual autonomy, contract, and voluntary association, is naturally confronted by a phenomenon that is almost exclusively explained and justified in the language of States, force and territory. But the apparent difficulties involved in providing a convincing account of nature and ethics of war in terms of…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |