Department Blog

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    Reproductive Choices and Climate Change Part 1: can you reduce your emissions by having fewer children?

Reproductive Choices and Climate Change Part 1: can you reduce your emissions by having fewer children?

23 March 2018|

Our lifestyle choices determine our individual carbon footprints, including the decision whether or not to have children. But should parents should be held responsible for the emissions of future generations?

Immigration and the Natural Lottery

7 March 2018|

Whose interests should matter when deciding a nation’s border policy? Campbell Brown takes a moral look at border control.

After Obamacare

16 January 2018|

How should US policy-makers choose a replacement for the Affordable Care Act? Dan Hausman looks at the values and economic complications guiding health care reform.

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    The Philosophy of Social Evolution Part 5: Cultural inclusive fitness?

The Philosophy of Social Evolution Part 5: Cultural inclusive fitness?

5 December 2017|

In the final post in this series, Jonathan Birch considers the development of large-scale human cooperation.

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    The Philosophy of Social Evolution Part 4: The social organism

The Philosophy of Social Evolution Part 4: The social organism

27 November 2017|

Has the time come for a revival of the “cell state” perspective? In part 4 of this series, Jonathan Birch looks at the evolution of multicellular life.

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    The Philosophy of Social Evolution Part 3: Relatedness, time and bacteria

The Philosophy of Social Evolution Part 3: Relatedness, time and bacteria

20 November 2017|

In the third installment in this series, Jonathan Birch looks at “horizontal transmission” and relatedness in bacteria.

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    The Philosophy of Social Evolution Part 2: Relatedness and Altruism

The Philosophy of Social Evolution Part 2: Relatedness and Altruism

13 November 2017|

How can we explain the evolution of altruism? In part 2 of this series, Jonathan Birch considers “Hamilton’s Rule”.

  • Permalink Fruiting bodies of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum (Photograph by Usman Bashir, CC-BY-SA 4.0 licensed)Gallery

    The Philosophy of Social Evolution Part 1: Altruism in Nature

The Philosophy of Social Evolution Part 1: Altruism in Nature

6 November 2017|

In the first installment of this five-part series, Jonathan Birch looks at biological altruism, a key concept from his new book The Philosophy of Social Evolution.

The Last Hope Part 3: Attitudes

3 October 2017|

How do you hope to be thought of after you die? In his final post in this series, Luc Bovens looks at attitudes towards the dead.

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    Weathering catastrophic storms: the science and philosophy of hurricane prediction

Weathering catastrophic storms: the science and philosophy of hurricane prediction

4 September 2017|

The science of predicting hurricanes is crucial for disaster management and insurance, but also raises difficult methodological and philosophical questions. In this post, Joe Roussos asks whether hurricane modellers should average the results from different models of hurricane frequency.