These sorts of technologies reignite traditional philosophical debates concerning the value of different experiences – could a virtual trip to Rome ever be as valuable (objectively or subjectively) as a real trip to Rome? – and conceptual questions about whether certain virtual activities, say, ‘having a party’ or ‘attending a concert’, can ever really be the activity that the virtual environment is designed to simulate. The prospect of robotic telepresence presents particular eth...| blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk
Over the past couple of months, the practice of ad blocking has received heightened ethical scrutiny. (1,2,3,4) If you’re unfamiliar with the term, “ad blocking” refers to software—usually web browser plug-ins, but increasingly mobile apps—that stop most ads from appearing when you use websites or apps that would otherwise show them. Arguments against ad blocking| Practical Ethics
This is the fourth in a trial blog series called “Practically Prompted” – an experiment in using large language models to independently select a recent, ethically rich news story and then write a Practical Ethics blog-style post about it. The text below is the model’s work, followed by some light human commentary. See this post for the| Practical Ethics
This is the third in a trial blog series called “Practically Prompted” – an experiment in using large language models to independently select a recent, ethically rich news story and then write a Practical Ethics blog-style post about it. The text below is the model’s work, followed by some light human commentary. See this post for the… Read More »Practically Prompted #3: VPNs Top the App Charts After UK Age-Checks Kick In: What Does “Protecting Children” Justify? The post Pr...| Practical Ethics
This is the second in a trial blog series called “Practically Prompted” – an experiment in using large language models to independently select a recent, ethically rich news story and then write a Practical Ethics blog-style post about it. The text below is the model’s work, followed by some light human commentary. See this post for the… Read More »Practically Prompted #2 – Regulating the Regulators: Europe’s New AI ‘Code of Practice’ and the Ethics of Voluntary Complianc...| Practical Ethics
I am just back from a celebration of the 20th anniversary of IDEA: the Ethics Centre, at the University of Leeds. (IDEA stands for ‘Inter-disciplinary Ethics Applied’.) IDEA was founded by Chris Megone, an old friend from my graduate days, and is now directed by Simon Kirchin. The centre has achieved a huge amount in… Read More »Congratulations to ‘IDEA’ in Leeds! The post Congratulations to ‘IDEA’ in Leeds! first appeared on Practical Ethics.| Practical Ethics
By Paul Heller (DPhil Student at the Uehiro Oxford Institute) On Friday 16th June, Jacob Nebel, Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, gave the 2025 Parfit Memorial Lecture. Professor Nebel’s lecture was entitled: “The Procreation Asymmetry: Some Puzzles.” This year’s lecture was jointly hosted by the Uehiro Oxford Institute and the Global Priorities Institute at… Read More »2025 Parfit Memorial Lecture – a summary The post 2025 Parfit Memorial Lecture – a summary fi...| Practical Ethics
This is the first in a trial blog series called “Practically Prompted” – an experiment in using large language models to independently select a recent, ethically rich news story and then write a Practical Ethics blog-style post about it. The text below is the model’s work, followed by some light human commentary. See this post… Read More »Practically Prompted #1: Should We Screen the Womb? Ethical Questions Raised by the New Miscarriage-Risk Test The post Practically Prompted #1: ...| Practical Ethics
This post introduces a trial blog series called “Practically Prompted” – an experiment in using large language models (LLMs) to write a Practical Ethics blog-style post, with some light human commentary about the output. So, why try this? The experiment is driven by several key motivations: To Test a New Tool: We want to see| Practical Ethics
A free, online summer programme open to all. This 9-week programme, part of the UOI’s Bitesize Ethics series, provides a short introduction to ethical issues directly related to Artificial Intelligence, beginning with a general introduction to AI ethics led by UOI scholar Hazem Zohny. The series continues each Wednesday, addressing themes of AI and human… Read More »Ethics in the Age of AI The post Ethics in the Age of AI first appeared on Practical Ethics.| Practical Ethics
TL;DR ADEPT turns large language models into a transparent ethics panel—every prompt, rebuttal, and vote is logged so anyone can replay the debate. Who’s in the (virtual) room changes everything: swapping just two personas reshapes the arguments and alliances, even when the final policy choice stays the same. Practical payoff: committees, hospital boards, and policy| Practical Ethics
Ethics in the Age of AI| blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk
Secretary of State for Justice Shabana Mahmood is reportedly looking into a potential ‘national rollout of voluntary chemical castration for sex offenders’. The proposal is one of the recommendations outlined in the recently published Independent Sentencing Review led by former Lord Chancellor David Gauke, commissioned to investigate ‘the prison overcrowding crisis and to consider alternative| Practical Ethics
By Dr Jeremy Gauntlett-Gilbert – student on the MSt Practical Ethics programme The advent of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence has opened up new possibilities for health research. Specifically, these techniques could be let loose on ‘big data’, such as the collective data of healthcare organisations (including the NHS), and would likely reveal new insights| Practical Ethics
You might have seen the headlines: Colossal Biosciences claims to have brought back the dire wolf. Except, it's not quite a direct resurrection. What Colossal actually created are genetically engineered proxies: grey wolves modified to have some dire wolf traits. I wondered if the news might renew interest in the ethics of “de-extinction” and perhaps| Practical Ethics
Author: Dr César Palacios-Gonzalez Discussions about maternal health and rights in Mexico tend to focus on health outcomes and access to healthcare. Academics and activists have long campaigned for the government to invest more resources in maternal health. Unfortunately, healthcare provision for women who want to have a child and are struggling to conceive hasn’t received enough| Practical Ethics
This year, we hosted the sixth edition of our annual Practical Ethics and Responsibility Competition (PERC). We received 42 entries to the video competition, and though we had many great entries, four finalists emerged as our winning teams, and travelled to Oxford for a day of ethics and debate, supported by their teachers. Our four teams were| Practical Ethics
What makes health ‘global’? This is the question I have addressed in a recent article in the journal Developing World Bioethics. I am afraid, however, that I don’t have an answer. Nor was answering the aim of the article. After all, many definitions of ‘global health’ exist in the literature and most of them are| Practical Ethics
Graduate Highly Commended paper in the 2025 National Uehiro Oxford Essay Prize in Practical Ethics. By Edward Lamb. During the 2024 Paris Olympics, the inclusion of Dutch beach volleyball player Steven van de Velde generated serious controversy. Van de Velde had previously been sentenced to four years in British jail, convicted of child rape.[1] After| Practical Ethics
What this post explores: The disconnect between philosophy, empirical research, and policy in practical ethics Initial experiments using language models to bridge these gaps Case study: Using Claude to extract empirical claims and policy implications from my own co-authored paper Limitations of this approach and questions for further exploration At its best, practical ethics addresses| Practical Ethics
Undergraduate Highly Commended paper in the 2025 National Uehiro Oxford Essay Prize in Practical Ethics. By Nicole Chinenyenwa Oboko. I have always been told that if a person has nothing nice to say, they should say nothing at all. For most of my life, I’ve upheld this belief. A decent person, as part of a decent| Practical Ethics
Undergraduate Highly Commended paper in the 2025 National Uehiro Oxford Essay Prize in Practical Ethics. By Artur Littner, University of Lancaster.| Practical Ethics
Undergraduate Finalist paper in the 2025 National Uehiro Oxford Essay Prize in Practical Ethics. By Elizabeth McCabe, University of Oxford.| Practical Ethics
Undergraduate Finalist paper in the 2025 National Uehiro Oxford Essay Prize in Practical Ethics. By Rahul Lakhanpaul, University of Edinburgh.| Practical Ethics
Dominic Wilkinson, University of Oxford A bill that proposes to ban first-cousin marriage in the UK will receive its second reading in the House of Commons on March 7. The bill, proposed by Conservative former minister Richard Holden, follows the introduction of a ban on cousin marriages that came into effect in Norway in 2023| Practical Ethics
by Thomas Mitchell In September last year, the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Act 2024 came into effect. This Act establishes safe zones of 200 metres in all directions around clinics offering abortion services, within which special protections apply to patients and staff accessing the clinic. The purpose is to prevent anyone from stopping women| Practical Ethics
Written by Dr Dennis Masaka, Great Zimbabwe University and AfOx Fellow at the Uehiro Oxford Institute https://www.uehiro.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-dennis-masaka In my proposed work as an AfOx Fellow at Oxford, I seek to initiate a conversation around the way land redistribution has so far taken place in Zimbabwe. I will use the frameworks of collective responsibility and collective| Practical Ethics
Dominic Wilkinson, University of Oxford; Bryanna Moore, University of Rochester, and Johnna Wellesley, The University of Texas Medical Branch There is a clear ethical and legal principle that adults have a right to make decisions about their health. This is sometimes called the principle of patient autonomy. That is, of course, why doctors need patients’| Practical Ethics
This article received an honourable mention in the graduate category of the 2023 National Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics Written by University of Oxford student Pablo Neira If the interests of sentient animals matter, then there are (at least pro tanto) reasons to prevent the harms they suffer. There are many different natural harms| Practical Ethics
Our new blog post, written by MSt student Eliora Henzler, delves into the ethics of sending people to a country they are not from. #Italy #Albania #PracticalEthics #UniversityofOxford| Practical Ethics |
The declaration of Helsinki recently turned 60, but don’t feel bad if you missed the celebrations. It probably passed unnoticed by most people not working in the medical field – and possibly even a good few in the field. If you’re not familiar with the declaration – adopted by the World Medical Association on October| Practical Ethics
Written by Dr Matti Häyry, PhD, Professor of Philosophy of Management, Aalto University School of Business (Academic Visitor at the Oxford Uehiro Centre, University of Oxford, 2007–2008) Antinatalism is being against reproduction, typically on altruistic grounds. Applied to humans, this means not having children in the trepidation that their lives could be miserable. A prominent| Practical Ethics
written by Christopher Register You can now pre-order a friend—or, a Friend, which is designed to be an AI friend. The small, round device contains AI-powered software and a microphone, and it’s designed to be worn on a lanyard around the neck at virtually any time. The austere product website says of Friend that, “When| Practical Ethics
Why is it so easy to humanize chatbots? Did millions of years of human evolution set us up to see a "mind in the machine"?| Practical Ethics
New International Consensus Calls for Healthcare Providers to Stop Performing Medically Unnecessary Genital Surgeries in Prepubertal Children and Infants, Regardless of Sex or Gender A new study led by researchers at the University of Oxford’s Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics published today in the American Journal of Bioethics argues that all children (defined in the study as prepubertal minors)| Practical Ethics
Imagine you are thirty, and you return home after a stressful day at work, wishing for a long bath to relax. After soaking in the tub for half an hour, the alarms suddenly go off, and your phone starts ringing. Your family members have been alerted by sensors in your home that you have been| Practical Ethics
JD Vance’s 2021 comments on how the Democrats are run by “childless cat ladies” are obviously – and probably deliberately – offensive, but the broader point of his remarks is one that’s worth considering. Vance’s broader point was that people without children “don't really have a direct stake” in the country. He means, of course,| Practical Ethics
There is a surprisingly high rate of natural miscarriage. I suggest that advances in IVF technology may lead to fewer embryos being miscarried or discarded, which should appeal to evangelicals or others who believe that a fertilized ovum has considerable intrinsic moral worth.| Practical Ethics
Reducing the Power of Childless Cat Ladies?| blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk
Written by Daniel Villiger Do I want to have children? This is one of the big life decisions. If I choose to have a child and am successful, I will become a parent and will experience the ups and downs, the advantages and disadvantages of being a parent. On the other hand, if I choose| Practical Ethics
Written by Rebecca Brown Imagine going to a cafe for a drink and snack. At some point you need the loo – you go to the bathroom but discover the toilet seat is higher than your waist! Somehow you manage to clamber up, unfortunately touching parts of a toilet you would prefer you didn’t have| Practical Ethics
Written by MSt student Mahdi Ghuloom Reports this year from May indicate that the college council of Trinity College Cambridge, has voted to divest from all arms companies (Mulla, 2024). Pressure has been rising from students on universities to conduct similar actions, often in a non-discriminatory set of demands. Some of course, have been focusing| Practical Ethics
Written by Joseph Moore Earlier this year, Alex Ruck Keene KC (Hon) delivered a Practical Ethics and Law Lecture at the Uehiro Centre on the topic of consent and autonomy-based arguments in medical ethics and law, to which the Centre’s Esther Braun responded. In the course of this enlightening discussion (and in private conversation since),| Practical Ethics
Written by MSt in Practical Ethics student Dr Jeremy Gauntlett-Gilbert Human beings, as a species, love to tell stories and to imagine that there are person-like agents behind events. The Ancient Greeks saw the rivers and the winds as personalised deities, placating them if they appeared ‘angry’. Psychologists in classic 1940s experiments were impressed at| Practical Ethics
Philosophy in Prison| blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk
by Neil Levy Doomsayers have always been with us. Equally, predictions of doom have always failed to materialise. Apocalyptic cults have been a recurrent feature of American society, in particular. Some have given specific dates for the destruction of the world, which the faithful would survive through preparation and prayer. The failures of the prophesied| Practical Ethics
