Imagine these scenarios: A child falls into a pond and is unable to swim. In one case, a bystander notices cameras recording the scene and, motivated to preserve their good reputation, jumps in and successfully saves the child. In a second case, a bystander sees the child slip, and with the intention of saving them, jumps in; however, a crocodile reaches the child first, and they fail to save them. Although the first bystander acts from a selfish motive, they succeed in savi

Imagine a jury instructed to look at a flickering courtroom monitor, watching grainy CCTV footage of a shop store front at midnight. Half of the jury is convinced that they saw the defendant's hand slip around a knife's hilt; whilst the other half insists it is nothing but a mere shadow cast by a passing car. This then begs the question are they witnessing two different ‘facts,’ or are their intellects abstracting distinct interpretations of the one real event? In other word

Introduction Humanity has never been promised an uninterrupted road to progression: it is purely the people who persevere with a starved desire for moral justice, even in the evil glare of injustice, who triumph over the oppressor and pave the way for future generations to thrive. Of course, this metaphor should be taken with a grain of salt, as there are such periods of time when the powerless remained powerless long enough never to see their oppressors toppled by the great

Often, yes, at least when the task is communicative: when we ask ChatGPT to explain, write, advise, or persuade. The "should" is instrumental-epistemic: if your aim is better inquiry, cooperative register often helps. This is not a moral claim about owing the machine anything, and the recommendation is conditional, not universal. "Polite" needs disambiguating. Moral courtesy extended to a being with welfare does not apply here; ChatGPT very likely lacks it. Surface markers, "

There is a universal human aversion to incest. This is often described by psychologists as ‘moral dumbfounding’, because it is so visceral and has managed to persist despite common individuals being unable to provide rational justifications for it. Family members tend to feel responsible for one another, so incest, even consensual, could be a form of exploitation. It is not considered ethically permissible to have intercourse in fiduciary relationships, like teachers are to s

Introduction On May 30, 1431, Jeanne d’Arc was executed as a relapsed heretic and burned at the stake before an estimated crowd of about 10,000 people. Condemned by an English ecclesiastical court, her descriptions of divine voices and luminous visions were dismissed by the Inquisition as demonic heresies. Yet her visions altered the course of the Hundred Years’ War. Her actions prompted the lifting of the Siege of Orléans and secured the coronation of Charles VII. So, were t

In 2011, the trial of R v Knox and Ors. in the United Kingdom was halted, and later dismissed, after it was discovered that Joanne Fraill, a juror, had contacted acquitted defendant Jamie Sewart after jury deliberations, via Facebook. Fraill also admitted to the conduct of independent research on Sewart. When asked for her reasoning, Fraill stated that she had done so because she empathised with Sewart. Lord Chief Justice Igor Judge posited that Fraill was ‘a woman of good ch

If asked to identify the most significant factors that result in a divided society, many would picture race, wealth, or culture: considering the widening gender gaps would not even make it to the list. Demographics can develop gaps in ideology within one society as a result of differing experiences, one of the major contributors to the recent widening gap between men and women being social media and its intentional push of divisive content to young users. Through the continuo

If legislators and judges all accepted the philosophical theory of determinism, what would be the effect on criminal sentencing? Say a man stands before a criminal court in the United Kingdom, charged with theft. The evidence is clear: he knowingly took another’s property. Yet suppose further that every causative condition leading to his act—his upbringing, psychological disposition, neurological state, and immediate circumstances—rendered that act inevitable, such that, the

A widely covered 2025 study argues that air pollution from Roman-era mining measurably lowered IQ scores across an entire empire. The atmospheric science behind that claim holds up well. The path from an ice core to an individual mind is considerably shakier.

Decades after Mao Zedong first became the chairman of the Chinese communist party, his glorified legacy continues to live on — in the hearts of Chinese nationalists, within sociopolitical culture, and through the giant portrait that prominently overlooks Tiananmen Square in Beijing. However, there is a significant contrast between the official narrative surrounding Mao within China and the interpretations of many historians outside China. The ideological gap between Western p