Do We Have Moral Obligations to the Dead?

For some, the question of whether we have moral obligations to the dead seems easy. How can we have duties towards people who do not exist? However, the debate is a bit more nuanced and complex than that. For example, some ethicists argue that we have moral obligations towards future generations, even though, like the…

View Post

Organ and Body Donation Should Be Encouraged, Not Made Compulsory

Donating your organs for transplantation, or donating your body to medical science, is a very charitable act. I myself do not believe that I will need my body or any of my body parts after I am dead (since I will not exist). I’m a registered organ donor for this reason and plan to donate…

View Post

Atheists Can Learn Some Lessons From Religion

Alain de Botton is a British writer, philosopher and TV presenter. He has written a book entitled Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion (2012). The main thrust of his argument is that atheists (actually, everyone in fact) can learn some important moral lessons from the world’s religions. He also spoke…

View Post

Lab-Grown Meat: Animal Welfare and Animal Rights Perspectives

On Monday the world’s first lab-grown, in vitro burger was cooked and eaten in London. Professor Mark Post from Maastricht University, along with his colleagues, took adult stem cells from a cow and then turned them into strips of muscle, which they combined to make a beef patty. Some have dubbed the patty, the ‘Frankenburger’.…

View Post

A Critical Look at Sweatshops

Sweatshops entail long hours with no breaks, terrible working conditions, a disgracefully low pay, abuse from employers and sometimes, worst of all, an abuse of child labour laws. Sweatshops are responsible for violating these workers’ human rights and for breaching laws relating to overtime and minimum wage. Some of the human rights that sweatshops breach,…

View Post