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I’m no expert. Still, I reckon the notorious claim made by Michael Gove, a leading campaigner for Britain to leave the European Union, that the nation had had enough of experts, will dog him for the rest of his career. In fact, he wasn’t alone. Other Brexit leaders also sneered at the pretensions of experts, the majority of whom warned about the risks – political, economic, social - of a Britain outside the EU.

The post In defence of moral experts appeared first on OUPblog.

Among the world’s most widely studied thinkers, Aristotle established systematic logic and helped to progress scientific investigation in fields as diverse as biology and political theory. But how much do you really know about this ancient philosopher?

The post How well do you know Aristotle? [quiz] appeared first on OUPblog.

Politicians are more than anxious over negative public opinion on the National Health Service, falling over backwards to say that the NHS is "safe in our hands." Meanwhile, the Church of England is concerned about losing "market-share," especially over conducting funerals. One way of linking these two extremely large British institutions is in terms of life-style choices.

The post The NHS and the Church of England appeared first on OUPblog.

“Tanking,” or deliberately trying to lose an athletic contest to gain a future competitive advantage, such as earning higher draft pick of prospective players, became the talk of the town or at least of many fans, in many US cities saddled with losing teams in such sports as hockey, basketball, and baseball. If actually practiced, however, tanking would exploit spectator, players, and coaches alike.

The post Let’s tank tanking appeared first on OUPblog.

Mass sexual violence against women and girls is a constant in human history. One of these atrocities erupted in August 2014 in ISIS-occupied territory and persists to this day. Mainly targeting women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority, ISIS officially reinstituted sexual slavery.

The post Caring about human rights: the case of ISIS and Yazidi women appeared first on OUPblog.

Disorientations—major life experiences that make it difficult for individuals to know how to go on—are deeply familiar, in part because they are common. It is rare to have never experienced some form of disorientation in one’s own life, perhaps in response to grief, illness, or other significant events.

The post What we talk about when we talk about being disoriented appeared first on OUPblog.

Retractions in scholarly journals have reached record levels. Doctorates have been removed from politicians and others for plagiarism, there has been tasteless denigration of academic colleagues under cover of academic freedom, researchers have been jailed for fraud, and conflicts of interest involving private industry’s role at universities have generated notoriety.

The post Scholarly misconduct and the integrity crisis appeared first on OUPblog.

The OUP Philosophy team have selected Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe as their January Philosopher of the Month. Anscombe was born in Limerick, Ireland, and spent much of her education at the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge. An analytical philosopher, Anscombe is best known for her works in the philosophy of mind, action, language, logic, and ethics.

The post Philosopher of the month: Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe appeared first on OUPblog.

Kantian ethical anarchism is ethical anti-statism. It says that there is no adequate rational justification for political authority, the state, or any other state-like institution, and that we should reject and exit the state and other state-like institutions, in order to create and belong to a real-world, worldwide ethical community, aka humanity, in a world without any states or state-like institutions.

The post A world with persons but without states appeared first on OUPblog.

This December, the OUP Philosophy team has chosen Baruch Spinoza as their Philosopher of the Month. The seventeenth century philosopher was seen as a controversial figure due to his views on God and religion, leading to excommunication from the Amsterdam Jewish community and his books being banned by the Church.

The post Test your knowledge of Baruch Spinoza [quiz] appeared first on OUPblog.

'Divine command theory' is the theory that what makes something morally right is that God commands it, and what makes something morally wrong is that God forbids it. There are many objections to this theory. The four main ones are that it makes morality arbitrary, that it cannot work in a pluralistic society, that it makes morality infantile, and that it is viciously circular.

The post Does moral obligation derive from God’s command? appeared first on OUPblog.

‘Ebola is a wake-up call.’ This is a common sentiment expressed by those who have reflected on the ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa. It is a reaction to the nearly 30,000 cases and over 11,000 deaths that have occurred since the first cases of the outbreak were reported in March 2014.

The post Most powerful lesson from Ebola: We do not learn our lessons appeared first on OUPblog.

The OUP Philosophy team has selected Baruch Spinoza as their December Philosopher of the Month. Born in Amsterdam, Spinoza has been called the “Prince of Philosophy” due to his revelatory work in ethics, epistemology, and other fields of philosophy. His works include 'The Principles of Cartesian Philosophy', 'Theologico-Political Treatise', and his magnum opus, 'Ethics'.

The post Philosopher of the Month: Baruch Spinoza appeared first on OUPblog.

Should we eat animals? Vegetarians often say “No, because the meat industry harms animals greatly.” They point to the appalling conditions in which animals are raised in factory farms, and the manner in which they are killed. Meat-eaters often reply that this objection is ill-founded because animals owe their very existence to the meat industry.

The post Does the meat industry harm animals? appeared first on OUPblog.

Novelists are used to their characters getting away from them. Tolstoy once complained that Katyusha Maslova was “dictating” her actions to him as he wrestled with the plot of his last novel, Resurrection. There was a story that after reading Mikhail Sholokhov’s And Quiet Flows the Don, Stalin praised the work but advised the author to “convince” the main character, Melekhov, to stop loafing about and start serving in the Red Army.

The post An educated fury: faith and doubt appeared first on OUPblog.

For years, my cholesterol level remained high, regardless of what I ate. I gave up all butter, cheese, red meat, and fried food. But every time I visited my doctor, he still shook his head sadly, as he looked at my lab results. Then, anti-cholesterol medications became available, and I started one.

The post Are drug companies experimenting on us too much? appeared first on OUPblog.

Criminological knowledge originating in the global North is drawn upon to inform crime control practices in other parts of the world. This idea is well established and most criminologists understand that their efforts to engage with policy makers and practitioners for the purpose of generating research impact abroad can have positive and negative consequences.

The post The ethics of criminological engagement abroad appeared first on OUPblog.

Two women are being trained for work on a factory assembly line. As products arrive on a conveyor belt, their task is to wrap each product and place it back on the belt. Their supervisor warns them that failing to wrap even one product is a firing offense, but once they get started, the work seems easy.

The post Ethics at the chocolate factory appeared first on OUPblog.

The Armenian genocide and the Holocaust took place decades ago, but the novelist William Faulkner was right when he said that “the past is never dead. It’s not even past.” It had been hoped that “Never again!” might be more than a slogan, but in April 1994, the Rwandan genocide began and was soon in full cry.

The post An ‘in-spite-of’ joy appeared first on OUPblog.

The creativity of rich individuals and their tax advisors to hide private wealth in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands or Switzerland knows hardly any bounds. Just as unethical, though often legal, are the multiple techniques multinational corporations use to shift profits to low-tax jurisdictions such as Panama or Bermuda. And even though small states have a structural advantage when it comes to engaging in tax competition, that is, attracting capital from abroad, big economies have become adept at playing the game, too: The United States, Germany, and with the Cayman

The post Tax competition – a threat to economic life as we know it appeared first on OUPblog.

There are massive inequalities in global health opportunities and outcomes.  Consider, for instance, that Japan has around twenty-one physicians per 10,000 people, while Malawi has only one physician for every fifty thousand people.  This radical inequality in medical skills and talents has, obviously, bad consequences for health; people born in Malawi will live, on average, […]

The post Global health inequalities and the “brain drain” appeared first on OUPblog.

Moral dilemmas are ubiquitous in modern democratic societies. Can we protect the bodily integrity of women and their unborn children at the same time? How can we protect the free will of adults while at the same time denying them to engage in self-harming activities, like (assisted) suicide or drug use?

The post Four ways in which policy-makers resolve moral dilemmas appeared first on OUPblog.

Fire and collapse in Bangladeshi factories are no longer unexpected news, and sweatshop scandals are too familiar. Conflicting moral, legal, and political claims abound. But there have been positives, and promises of more. The best hope for progress may be in the power of individual contracts.

The post The new social contracts appeared first on OUPblog.

William Godwin did not philosophically address the question of debt obligations, although he often had many. Perhaps this helps to explain the omission. It’s very likely that Godwin would deny that there is such a thing as the obligation to repay debts, and his creditors wouldn’t have liked that.

The post William Godwin on debt appeared first on OUPblog.

Ethics is in the air!

(I can see you right now saying, “Um, what?”)

By that I mean Carol Tice’s and my 4-Week J-School Audit is on sale until July 30 (a BIG welcome to the 80 of you who have signed on so far!) — and we have a whole lesson on journalism ethics. And because we’re talking so much about ethics in our marketing materials, we’ve been getting a lot of questions from readers.

One awesome writer sent in this question:

I was surprised to read, in your post about mistakes you have made, that it is not okay to reuse ANYTHING from a previous article, not even a phrase or a quote. I’ve never heard that before. In fact, I seem to remember you or Carol encouraging us to reslant and resell our stories as a way to get double duty from our work. If we can’t reuse our quotes, that doesn’t seem like it saves us anything. I’ve been planning to try and spin a couple of my stories in different ways for different markets. Comments?

Great question!

Stealing from your own previously published work is called self-plagiarism, and it is a big problem. In fact, as you’ll see in the post I linked to above, I was once fired for it before I knew any better.

While it’s not technically illegal to reuse portions of your own work (unless you signed a contract forbidding it), and some debate whether or not it is unethical, according to this article on Slate, it’s all about the expectations of the audience. So, for example, when I compile blog posts into a book and make it clear in the subtitle that the book is made up of previously-run blog posts, no one seems to mind. As long as the information is new and helpful to the audience, it is likely not a problem.

But when you write for magazines or online publications, your first audience is your editor. You need to ask yourself: How would your editor feel if she saw another article that had the same quotes or phrases as the one you just turned in — especially when she bought first rights or all rights to your piece? I’d wager she wouldn’t like it very much.

And that’s all that matters if you want to keep getting freelance writing jobs. You can debate the ethics of self-plagiarism with her until your face turns a lovely shade of blue…but if she thinks it’s unacceptable — which I assure you she will — then it’s a no-no for you. (And with Copyscape, you certainly won’t get away with it.)

But take heart! When developing a new pitch/article, you can still reuse:

• Your idea (Reslanted for a non-competing publication; for example, I once wrote a diet article for Oxygen and then reslanted it for Men’s Fitness.)
• The knowledge you gained writing the original article, which will make your research much faster.
• Your sources. (Though you would need to re-interview them or use quotes you didn’t use in the original article.)

Journalism ethics is a sticky topic — you need to know not only about self-plagiarism but also libel, using proper citations, quoting sources, fair use laws, and other practices that can keep you from getting sued (or at the very least, in trouble with your editor).

If you’re not up to speed on these topics, consider joining the 4-Week J-School Audit today. You’ll not only learn the ins and outs of journalism ethics, but also get the scoop on generating salable ideas, writing pitches that sell, and crafting compelling articles. The class is self-paced, and you get access to the materials (including the tasty bonuses) forever. And we offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee! Go to the class page to check out the testimonials from happy students who have gotten freelance writing jobs after taking our class.