Moral Philosophy / Ethics

 

Philosophy Bites - Janet Radcliffe Richards on What is Philosophy?

Janet Radcliffe Richards on What is Philosophy?

In term 1 on 18/3/26, Helen led a discussion on moral philosophy / ethics.  Please find below some notes on the subject prepared by Helen:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k3GGpaMT8YkLnUIQFnsK4w1yMKIopkQT/view?usp=sharing

We will listen to the above podcast and have further discussion on this interesting topic. 

Debate | Legalising the Sale of Human Organs

The following Youtube playlist lists videos of a debate on Sale of Human Organs at the Oxford Union Society on Thursday 29th October 2015. The motion was: This House Would Legalise the Sale of Human Organs.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOAFgXcJkZ2zAkdONvfZuUzx6aiflkTId&si=4mcAOAbYcS3sSHq3

Speakers in order of appearance:

Callum Tipple | Proposition

Naomi Barker | Opposition

Janet Radcliffe Richards | Proposition

Vivienne Parry | Opposition

John Harris | Proposition

Raanan Gillon | Opposition 

This coming Wednesday, 20/5/26, I plan to watch some of the videos in this playlist and discuss the arguments made by both the proposing and the opposing sides.

Arguments of the debate

Please find below my summary of the arguments of the human organ debate:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tn-t6PbyVzlJhvX_QgvC-Cg10LrgZ2gI/view?usp=sharing 

Kidney trade in Iran

Iran currently is the only country in the world that allows the sale of one's kidney for compensation (typically a payment); consequently, the country does not have either a waiting list or a shortage of available organs.  For more information, please see below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidney_trade_in_Iran

Organ trade - Wikipedia page

Please see below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_trade

Moral Value Pluralism

 

What is Pluralism? - PHILO-notes

 

The following are articles from Wikipedia and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

• Value pluralism - Wikipedia
• Value Pluralism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)*

* We will base our discussion on the article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy above. 

Related topics

Axiology, the study of value and valuation, is related to this topic.  The following articles in Wikipedia discuss axiology:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Values_(Western_philosophy)
  
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_theory
  
• https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/value-theory/

Some questions on Value Pluralism 

1. Why do people have different values?
2. Are there some core values that all people or all living things share?
3. Are there right and wrong or better and worse values or value systems?
4. If so, how does one decide which are the right or better values?
5. When there are conflicting values, how should we make good decisions?