New York Times

Peter Singer, the internationally influential emeritus bioethics professor from Princeton, is known as a moral philosopher — which in his case is an oxymoron. Not only has he repeatedly endorsed the moral propriety of infanticide, but he has also yawned at bestiality and suggested experimenting on cognitively disabled people rather than animals if they are not “persons,” among other ethically depraved opinions. Singer and another philosophy professor — Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek — just took to the opinion pages of the New York Times to endorse geriatric suicide. It seems a noted 90-year-old psychologist named Daniel Kahneman committed assisted suicide last year at one of Switzerland’s death clinics. Kahneman wasn’t seriously ill or debilitated but feared the infirmities that he believed Read More ›

The New York Times has a long — and, I must say, generally fair — discussion of the contentious issue of embryo research. I won’t belabor most of the issues raised, but I want to highlight one aspect of the column that illustrates how some “expert ethicists” consider it a part of their job to conjure ways to bust through established moral limits.

When embryonic research first started, we were told that there would be a strict 14-day limit on researching embryos in petri dishes. At the time, I said it was all baloney, that the “ethicists” established the “14-day rule” only because embryos couldn’t be kept viable in a dish after that time. In other words, they were prohibiting something that could not yet be done. But, I predicted, once the permitted research found ways to keep embryos going beyond 14 days, the rule would be repealed. And so it came to pass.

Now, apparently, to further facilitate an anything-goes embryonic-research license — and in light of the potential that embryos can be manufactured outside of fertilization — some “ethicists” are arguing that the definition of “embryo” should be revised. From, “The Embryo Question Can’t Be Ignored” (my emphasis):

We hear a lot from environmentalists, animal rights activists, and just plain caring people about the supposed evils of industrial farming. Neo-Luddites throw tantrums about GMOs, for example. And many commenters — including in these pages — lament the conditions in which meat animals and egg-laying hens are raised. Those are certainly legitimate concerns worthy of investigation and debate. But we also need to focus on the tremendous good humans receive from having bountiful, affordable, and nutritious food supplies, which would seem to require at least some industrial methods to achieve. Indeed, until now, these and other benefits humans receive from industrial agriculture and so-called factory farms seem to be one of those hot potato topics that we are not allowed to Read More ›

In this episode of Humanize, Wesley focuses on AI — artificial intelligence. Are we on the verge of an era if incalculable human progress because of the power of AI? Or are we threatened with being made obsolete and perhaps extinguished in an age of intelligent machines? Or, perhaps, a combination of both? The program features two experts who have Read More ›