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Rationally Speaking: A new eugenics? - 0 views

rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/...new-eugenics.html Eugenics Designer Baby Baby
shared by Weiye Loh on 26 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • an interesting article I read recently, penned by Julian Savulescu for the Practical Ethics blog.
  • Savulescu discusses an ongoing controversy in Germany about genetic testing of human embryos. The Leopoldina, Germany’s equivalent of the National Academy of Sciences, has recommended genetic testing of pre-implant embryos, to screen for serious and incurable defects. The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has agreed to allow a parliamentary vote on this issue, but also said that she personally supports a ban on this type of testing. Her fear is that the testing would quickly lead to “designer babies,” i.e. to parents making choices about their unborn offspring based not on knowledge about serious disease, but simply because they happen to prefer a particular height or eye color.
  • He infers from Merkel’s comments (and many similar others) that people tend to think of selecting traits like eye color as eugenics, while acting to avoid incurable disease is not considered eugenics. He argues that this is exactly wrong: eugenics, as he points out, means “well born,” so eugenicists have historically been concerned with eliminating traits that would harm society (Wendell Holmes’ “three generation of imbeciles”), not with simple aesthetic choices. As Savulescu puts it: “[eugenics] is selecting embryos which are better, in this context, have better lives. Being healthy rather than sick is ‘better.’ Having blond hair and blue eyes is not in any plausible sense ‘better,’ even if people mistakenly think so.”
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  • And there is another, related aspect of discussions about eugenics that should be at the forefront of our consideration: what was particularly objectionable about American and Nazi early 20th century eugenics is that the state, not individuals, were to make decisions about who could reproduce and who couldn’t. Savulescu continues: “to grant procreative liberty is the only way to avoid the objectionable form of eugenics that the Nazis practiced.” In other words, it makes all the difference in the world if it is an individual couple who decides to have or not have a baby, or if it is the state that imposes a particular reproductive choice on its citizenry.
  • but then Savulescu expands his argument to a point where I begin to feel somewhat uncomfortable. He says: “[procreative liberty] involves the freedom to choose a child with red hair or blond hair or no hair.”
  • Savulescu has suddenly sneaked into his argument for procreative liberty the assumption that all choices in this area are on the same level. But while it is hard to object to action aimed at avoiding devastating diseases, it is not quite so obvious to me what arguments favor the idea of designer babies. The first intervention can be justified, for instance, on consequentialist grounds because it reduces the pain and suffering of both the child and the parents. The second intervention is analogous to shopping for a new bag, or a new car, which means that it commodifies the act of conceiving a baby, thus degrading its importance. I’m not saying that that in itself is sufficient to make it illegal, but the ethics of it is different, and that difference cannot simply be swept under the broad rug of “procreative liberty.”
  • designing babies is to treat them as objects, not as human beings, and there are a couple of strong philosophical traditions in ethics that go squarely against that (I’m thinking, obviously, of Kant’s categorical imperative, as well as of virtue ethics; not sure what a consequentialist would say about this, probably she would remain neutral on the issue).
  • Commodification of human beings has historically produced all sorts of bad stuff, from slavery to exploitative prostitution, and arguably to war (after all, we are using our soldiers as means to gain access to power, resources, territory, etc.)
  • And of course, there is the issue of access. Across-the-board “procreative liberty” of the type envisioned by Savulescu will cost money because it requires considerable resources.
  • imagine that these parents decide to purchase the ability to produce babies that have the type of characteristics that will make them more successful in society: taller, more handsome, blue eyed, blonde, more symmetrical, whatever. We have just created yet another way for the privileged to augment and pass their privileges to the next generation — in this case literally through their genes, not just as real estate or bank accounts. That would quickly lead to an even further divide between the haves and the have-nots, more inequality, more injustice, possibly, in the long run, even two different species (why not design your babies so that they can’t breed with certain types of undesirables, for instance?). Is that the sort of society that Savulescu is willing to envision in the name of his total procreative liberty? That begins to sounds like the libertarian version of the eugenic ideal, something potentially only slightly less nightmarish than the early 20th century original.
  • Rich people already have better choices when it comes to their babies. Taller and richer men can choose between more attractive and physically fit women and attractive women can choose between more physically fit and rich men. So it is reasonable to conclude that on average rich and attractive people already have more options when it comes to their offspring. Moreover no one is questioning their right to do so and this is based on a respect for a basic instinct which we all have and which is exactly why these people would choose to have a DB. Is it fair for someone to be tall because his daddy was rich and married a supermodel but not because his daddy was rich and had his DNA resequenced? Is it former good because its natural and the latter bad because its not? This isn't at all obvious to me.
  • Not to mention that rich people can provide better health care, education and nutrition to their children and again no one is questioning their right to do so. Wouldn't a couple of inches be pretty negligible compared to getting into a good school? Aren't we applying double standards by objecting to this issue alone? Do we really live in a society that values equal opportunities? People (may) be equal before the law but they are not equal to each other and each one of us is tacitly accepting that fact when we acknowledge the social hierarchy (in other words, every time we interact with someone who is our superior). I am not crazy about this fact but that's just how people are and this has to be taken into account when discussing this.
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Rationally Speaking: Double podcast teaser! Vegetarianism and the relationship between ... - 0 views

rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/...-teaser-vegetarianism-and.html Ethics Vegetarianism Science Value
shared by Weiye Loh on 03 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Vegetarianism: is it a good idea? Vegetarianism is a complex set of beliefs and practices, spanning from the extreme “fruitarianism,” where people only eat fruits and other plant parts that can be gathered without “harming” the plant (though I’m sure the plant would rather keep its fruits and use them for the evolutionary purpose of dispersing its own offspring) to various forms of “flexitaranism,” like pollotarianism (poultry is okay to eat) and pescetarianism (fisk okay).
  • Is it true that a vegetarian diet increases one’s health? Yes, but only in certain respects, partially because vegetarians also tend to be health conscious in general (they exercise, don’t smoke, drink less, etc.), and it is not the case for the more extreme versions (including veganism), where one needs to be extremely careful to achieve a balanced diet which may need to be supplemented artificially, especially for growing children.
  • What is the ethical case for vegetarianism? Again, the answer is complex. It seems hard to logically defend fruitarianism, and borderline to make a moral argument for veganism, but broader forms of vegetarianism certainly get at important issues of suffering and mistreatment of both animals and industry workers, not to mention that the environmental impact of meat eating is much more damaging than that of vegetarianism. And so the debate rages on.
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  • Value-free science? Many scientists think that science is about objectivity and “just the facts, ma’am.” Not so fast, philosophers, historians and sociologists of science have argued now for a number of decades. While I certainly have no sympathy for the extreme postmodernist position exemplified by the so-called “strong programme” in sociology of science — that science is entirely the result of social construction — there are several interesting and delicate facets of the problem to explore.
  • there are values embedded in the practice of science itself: testability, accuracy, generality, simplicity, and the like. Needless to say, few if any of these can be justified within science itself — there is no experiment confirming Occam’s razor, for instance.
  • Then there are the many moral dimensions of science practice, both in terms of ethical issues internal to science (fraud) and of the much broader ones affecting society at large (societal consequences of research and technological advances).
  • There is also the issue of diversity in science. Until very recently, and in many fields still today, science has largely been an affair conducted by white males. And this has historically resulted in a large amount of nonsense — say about gender differences, or ethnic differences — put forth as objective knowledge and accepted by the public because it has the imprimatur of science. But, you might say, that was the past, now we have corrected the errors and moved on. Except that such an argument ignores the fact that there is little reason to think that only we have gotten it just right, that the current generation is somehow immune from an otherwise uninterrupted history of science-based blunders.
  • Regarding Occam's Razor, there is a justification for it based on probability theory, see:http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/01/12/occams-razor-bayes-theorem/http://telescoper.wordpress.com/2011/02/19/bayes-razor/http://www.stat.duke.edu/~berger/papers/ockham.html
  • another interesting dimension of the relationship between values and science concerns which scientific questions we should pursue (and, often, fund with public money). Scientists often act as they ought to be the only arbiters here, and talk as if some questions were “obviously” intrinsically important. But when your research is costly and paid for by the public, perhaps society deserves a bit more of an explanation concerning why millions of dollars ought to be spent on obscure problems that apparently interest only a handful of university professors concentrated in one or a few countries.
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The secret to a long life isn't what you think - USATODAY.com - 0 views

yourlife.usatoday.com/...1 Longevity Health Academic Research
shared by Weiye Loh on 04 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Researchers Howard Friedman and Leslie Martin report their conclusions in a new book, The Longevity Project. "Everybody has the ideas — don't stress, don't worry, don't work so hard, retire and go play golf," says Friedman, a psychology professor at University of California-Riverside. "We did not find these patterns to exist in people who thrived."
  • At the core of their 20 years of research is a study started by Stanford University psychologist Lewis Terman in 1921. Terman died in 1956, but other researchers carried on the study. One participant was biologist Ancel Keys, whose life-long work helped popularize the Mediterranean diet. He died in 2004 at age 100. He enjoyed gardening as an activity much of his life.
  • if your activities rise or stay high in middle age, you definitely stay healthier and live longer," says Martin, a research psychologist at University of California-Riverside.
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  • The participants who lived long, happy lives "were not cynical rebels and loners" but accomplished people who were satisfied with their lives. Many knew that worrying is sometimes a good thing. The authors also looked at a study of Medicare patients that found that "neuroticism was health-protective."
  • spending 30 minutes at least four times a week expending energy at a moderate to intense level is "good up-to-date medical advice but poor practical advice."
  • Being active in middle age was most important to health and longevity in the study. But rather than vow to do something to get in shape (like jogging) and then hate it and not stick with it, find something you like to do."We looked at those who stayed active," Friedman says. "It wasn't the kids on sports teams. It's the ones who had activities at one point and had the pattern of keeping them ... They were doing stuff that got them out of the chair ... whether it was gardening, walking the dog or going to museums."
  • One of the best childhood personality predictors of longevity was conscientiousness — "qualities of a prudent, persistent, well-organized person, like a scientist or professor — somewhat obsessive and not at all carefree,"
  • the most obvious reason "is that conscientious people do more things to protect their health and engage in fewer activities that are risky."
  • "What characterized the people who thrived is a combination of their own persistence and dependability and the help of other people," Friedman says. The young adults who were thrifty, persistent, detail-oriented and responsible lived the longest.
  • Those with the most career success were the least likely to die young. Those who moved from job to job without a clear progression were less likely to have long lives than those with increasing responsibilities.
  • "continually productive men and women lived much longer than the laid-back comrades. ... This production orientation mattered more than their social relationships or their sense of happiness or well-being."
  • those who were most engaged in pursuing their goals.
  • a sexually satisfying and happy marriage is a very good indicator of future health and long life," but being single for a woman can be just as healthy as being in a marriage, especially if she has other fulfilling social relationships.
  • The married men in the study lived the longest. Single men outlived remarried men but didn't live as long as married men. Among women, the number who divorced their husbands and stayed single lived nearly as long as steadily married women."Being divorced was much less harmful to a women's health," the authors say.
  • Weiye Loh on 04 Mar 11
     
    The idea that your job or your boss is leading you to an early grave is one of several myths debunked in an analysis of a 90-year study that followed 1,528 Americans. Among other myths: be optimistic, get married, go to church, eat broccoli and get a gym membership.
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Sunita Narain: Indian scientists: missing in action - 0 views

www.business-standard.com/...428350 Science Policy Capitalism
shared by Weiye Loh on 15 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Since then there has been dead silence among the powerful scientific leaders of the country, with one exception. Kiran Karnik, a former employee of ISRO and board member of Deva
  • when the scientists who understand the issue are not prepared to engage with the public, there can be little informed discussion. The cynical public, which sees scams tumble out each day, believes easily that everybody is a crook. But, as I said, the country’s top scientists have withdrawn further into their comfort holes, their opinion frozen in contempt that Indian society is scientifically illiterate. I can assure you in the future there will be even less conversation between scientists and all of us in the public sphere.
  • This is not good. Science is about everyday policy. It needs to be understood and for this it needs to be discussed and deliberated openly and strenuously. But how will this happen if one side — the one with information, knowledge and power — will not engage in public discourse?
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  • I suspect Indian scientists have retired hurt to the pavilion. They were exposed to some nasty public scrutiny on a deal made by a premier science research establishment, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), with Devas, a private company, on the allocation of spectrum. The public verdict was that the arrangement was a scandal; public resources had been given away for a song. The government, already scam-bruised, hastily scrapped the contract.
  • Take the issue of genetically-modified (GM) crops. For long this matter has been decided inside closed-door committee rooms, where scientists are comforted by the fact that their decisions will not be challenged. Their defence is “sound science” and “superior knowledge”. It is interesting that the same scientists will accept data produced by private companies pushing the product. Issues of conflict of interest will be brushed aside as integrity cannot be questioned behind closed doors. Silence is the best insurance. This is what happened inside a stuffy committee room, where scientists sat to give permission to Mahyco-Monsanto to grow genetically-modified brinjal.
  • This case involved a vegetable we all eat. This was a matter of science we had the right to know about and to decide upon. The issue made headlines. The reaction of the scientific fraternity was predictable and obnoxious. They resented the questions. They did not want a public debate.
  • As the controversy raged and more people got involved, the scientists ran for cover. They wanted none of this messy street fight. They were meant to advise prime ministers and the likes, not to answer simple questions of people. Finally, when environment minister Jairam Ramesh took the decision on the side of the ordinary vegetable eater, unconvinced by the validity of the scientific data to justify no-harm, scientists were missing in their public reactions. Instead, they whispered about lack of “sound science” in the decision inside committees.
  • The matter did not end there. The minister commissioned an inter-academy inquiry — six top scientific institutions looked into GM crops and Bt-brinjal — expecting a rigorous examination of the technical issues and data gaps. The report released by this committee was shoddy to say the least. It contained no references or attributions and not a single citation. It made sweeping statements and lifted passages from a government newsletter and even from global biotech industry. The report was thrashed. Scientists again withdrew into offended silence.
  • The final report of this apex-science group is marginally better in that it includes citations but it reeks of scientific arrogance cloaked in jargon. The committee did not find it fit to review the matter, which had reached public scrutiny. The report is only a cover for their established opinion about the ‘truth’ of Bt-brinjal. Science for them is certainly not a matter of enquiry, critique or even dissent.
  • the world has changed. No longer is this report meant only for top political and policy leaders, who would be overwhelmed by the weight of the matter, the language and the expert knowledge of the writer. The report will be subjected to public scrutiny. Its lack of rigour will be deliberated, its unquestioned assertion challenged.
  • This is the difference between the manufactured comfortable world of science behind closed doors and the noisy messy world outside. It is clear to me that Indian scientists need confidence to creatively engage in public concerns. The task to build scientific literacy will not happen without their engagement and their tolerance for dissent. The role of science in Indian democracy is being revisited with a new intensity. The only problem is that the key players are missing in action.
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Diary of A Singaporean Mind: Nuclear Crisis : Separating Hyperbole from Reality.... - 0 views

singaporemind.blogspot.com/...isis-separating-hyperbole.html Media Representation Bias Apocalyptic
shared by Weiye Loh on 20 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • the media and pundits stepped on the "fear creation accelerator" focussing on the possibility of disastrous outcomes while ignoring possible solutions and options.
  • Nobody can say for sure how this crisis is headed. As of today, the risk of a total meltdown has been reduced. However, if one was listening to some segments of the media earlier this week, disaster was the only possible outcome. Fear and panic itself would have caused a disaster Imagine the mess created by millions fleeing Tokyo in a haphazard manner - the sick, old and invalid left behind, food & water distribution disrupted - would have led to more deaths much worse than the worst case meltdown that would have led to reactors being entombed. It also shows us the importance of leadership we can trust - the Japanese Minister Yukio Edano held 5 press conference every day[Link] to update the nation on the dynamic situation (compare that with the initial handling of SARS outbreak).
  • I hope the Japanese succeed in getting the nuclear reactors under control. Extraordinary crisis requires extraordinary leadership, extraordinary sacrifice and extraordinary courage. In the confusion and fear, it is hard for people not to panic and flee but most of the Japanese in Tokyo stayed calm despite all sorts of scares. If another group of people are put through a crisis, the response may be completely different
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  • there is a tendency to conclude that govts with the best expert advice have made this decision because there is a real danger of something sinister happening. But remember govts are also under pressure to act because they are made up of politicians - also they may be making precautionary moves because they have little to lose and have to be seen as being pro-active. How real is the danger of harmful radiation reaching Tokyo and should you leave if you're in Tokyo? There were many people doing a "wait and see" before Wednesday but once the US & UK govt called for a pull-out, the fear factor rose several notches and if you're a Japanese in Tokyo watching all the foreigners "abandoning" your city, you start to feel some anxiety and later panic. One EU official used the word "apocalypse"[Link] to describe the situation in Japan and the fear index hit the roof....then a whole herd of experts came out to paint more dire scenarios saying the Japanese have lost all control of the nuclear plants. All this lead the public to think that calamity is the most likely outcome of the unfolding saga and if make a decision from all this, you will just run for the exits if you're in Tokyo. All this is happening while the Japanese govt is trying to calm the people and prevent a pandemonium after the triple disaster hit the country. In China, people have emptied the supermarket shelves of iodized salt because of media reports that the consumption of iodine can block radioactive iodine from being absorbed by thyroid glands causing thyroid cancer. There are also reports of people getting ill after ingesting iodine pills out of fear of radiation.

Who Says Smoking Pot is Illegal? - 1 views

started by Sonny Cher on 01 Jun 11 no follow-up yet
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New evidence about Amina, the "Gay Girl in Damascus" hoax | The Electronic Intifada - 0 views

electronicintifada.net/...t-amina-gay-girl-damascus-hoax Simulacrum Simulation Internet New Media Homosexuality Politics
shared by Weiye Loh on 12 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • We believe the story of Amina to be totally baseless and the doubts expressed by other observers, such as Liz Henry and Andy Carvin, to be entirely founded. We also believe that whoever is responsible for the hoax is attempting to conceal their responsibility and continues to disseminate false information. They have previously engaged in such behavior as taking photographs from the Facebook page of a totally uninvolved individual and deceptively presenting them as being images of Amina and members of her family. We believe that the person or persons responsible should end this deception which has been harmful to individuals who trusted and believed in “Amina” and more broadly has sown confusion, distraction and absorbed energy and attention at a time when real people are in danger in Syria and in other countries in the region. We are sharing the information we have gathered here not in order to level accusations, but so that others might pursue these leads to conclusive ends. The best outcome would be if the person or persons behind the hoax would take responsibility themselves to bring the matter to a close and provide all doubters with reassurance that “Amina” is not in danger because she is a fictitious character. While we believe that the information gathered here is compelling in its own right, we have managed to corroborate additional information from several independent sources that we are not publishing and that significantly increases our confidence in the information we have. We do not know the motives of the person or persons behind this hoax.
  • Weiye Loh on 12 Jun 11
     
    We have gathered compelling new evidence regarding the "Gay Girl in Damascus" blogger hoax.

Who Says Smoking Pot is Illegal? - 1 views

started by Sonny Cher on 16 Jun 11 no follow-up yet
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'BBC's biased climate science reporting isn't biased enough' claims report - Telegraph ... - 0 views

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/...nt-biased-enough-claims-report Climate Change Journalism Objectivity
shared by Weiye Loh on 01 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • What many of these sceptics – or deniers, if you must – do question is a) whether – and if so by how much – this warming is anthropogenic (ie human-caused) b) whether the warming constitutes a threat – or whether its benefits might in fact far outweigh its drawbacks c) whether this warming likely to continue or whether – as happened without human influence at the end of the Roman warm period and the Medieval warm period – it will be followed by a period of natural cooling d) whether the drastic policy measures (tax, regulation, “decarbonisation”, the drive for renewables) being enacted to ‘combat climate change’ will not end up doing far more harm than good.
  • Though Dr Jones’s report argues that the BBC should from henceforward give less space to sceptics, it’s difficult to imagine quite how it could possibly do so. About the only occasion on which they have been given any air space has been on hatchet-jobs like the BBC’s feature-length assault on Lord Monckton, “Meet The Climate Sceptics”.
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Rationally Speaking: On ethics, part III: Deontology - 0 views

rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/...thics-part-iii-deontology.html Ethics Deontology
shared by Weiye Loh on 17 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Plato showed convincingly in his Euthyphro dialogue that even if gods existed they would not help at all settling the question of morality.
  • Broadly speaking, deontological approaches fall into the same category as consequentialism — they are concerned with what we ought to do, as opposed to what sort of persons we ought to be (the latter is, most famously, the concern of virtue ethics). That said, deontology is the chief rival of consequentialism, and the two have distinct advantages and disadvantages that seem so irreducible
  • Here is one way to understand the difference between consequentialism and deontology: for the former the consequences of an action are moral if they increase the Good (which, as we have seen, can be specified in different ways, including increasing happiness and/or decreasing pain). For the latter, the fundamental criterion is conformity to moral duties. You could say that for the deontologist the Right (sometimes) trumps the Good. Of course, as a result consequentialists have to go through the trouble of defining and justifying the Good, while deontologists have to tackle the task of defining and justifying the Right.
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  • two major “modes” of deontology: agent-centered and victim-centered. Agent-centered deontology is concerned with permissions and obligations to act toward other agents, the typical example being parents’ duty to protect and nurture their children. Notice the immediate departure from consequentialism, here, since the latter is an agent-neutral type of ethics (we have seen that it has trouble justifying the idea of special treatment of relatives or friends). Where do such agent-relative obligations come from? From the fact that we make explicit or implicit promises to some agents but not others. By bringing my child into the world, for instance, I make a special promise to that particular individual, a promise that I do not make to anyone else’s children. While this certainly doesn’t mean that I don’t have duties toward other children (like inflicting no intentional harm), it does mean that I have additional duties toward my own children as a result of the simple fact that they are mine.
  • Agent-centered deontology gets into trouble because of its close philosophical association to some doctrines that originated within Catholic theology, like the idea of double effect. (I should immediately clarify that the trouble is not due to the fact that these doctrines are rooted in a religious framework, it’s their intrinsic moral logic that is at issue here.) For instance, for agent-centered deontologists we are morally forbidden from killing innocent others (reasonably enough), but this prohibition extends even to cases when so doing would actually save even more innocents.
  • Those familiar with trolleology will recognize one of the classic forms of the trolley dilemma here: is it right to throw an innocent person in front of the out of control trolley in order to save five others? For consequentialists the answer is a no-brainer: of course yes, you are saving a net of four lives! But for the deontologist you are now using another person (the innocent you are throwing to stop the trolley) as a means to an end, thus violating one of the forms of Kant’s imperative:“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end.”
  • The other form, in case you are wondering, is: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction.”
  • Victim-centered deontologies are right- rather than duty-based, which of course does raise the question of why we think of them as deontological to begin with.
  • The fundamental idea about victim-centered deontology is the right that people have not to be used by others without their consent. This is were we find Robert Nozick-style libertarianism, which I have already criticized on this blog. One of the major implications of this version of deontology is that there is no strong moral duty to help others.
  • contractarian deontological theories. These deal with social contracts of the type, for instance, discussed by John Rawls in his theory of justice. However, I will devote a separate post to contractarianism, in part because it is so important in ethics, and in part because one can argue that contractarianism is really a meta-ethical theory, and therefore does not strictly fall under deontology per se.
  • deontological theories have the advantage over consequentialism in that they account for special concerns for one’s relatives and friends, as we have seen above. Consequentialism, by comparison, comes across as alienating and unreasonably demanding. Another advantage of deontology over consequentialism is that it accounts for the intuition that even if an act is not morally demanded it may still be praiseworthy. For a consequentialist, on the contrary, if something is not morally demanded it is then morally forbidden. (Another way to put this is that consequentialism is a more minimalist approach to ethics than deontology.) Moreover, deontology also deals much better than consequentialism with the idea of rights.
  • deontological theories run into the problem that they seem to give us permission, and sometimes even require, to make things actually morally worse in the world. Indeed, a strict deontologist could actually cause human catastrophes by adhering to Kant’s imperative and still think he acted morally (Kant at one point remarked that it is “better the whole people should perish” than that injustice be done — one wonders injustice to whom, since nobody would be left standing). Deontologists also have trouble dealing with the seemingly contradictory ideas that our duties are categorical (i.e., they do not admit of exceptions), and yet that some duties are more important than others. (Again, Kant famously stated that “a conflict of duties is inconceivable” while forgetting to provide any argument in defense of such a bold statement.)
  • . One famous attempt at this reconciliation was proposed by Thomas Nagel (he of “what is it like to be a bat?” fame). Nagel suggested that perhaps we should be consequentialists when it comes to agent-neutral reasoning, and deontologists when we engage in agent-relative reasoning. He neglected to specify, however, any non-mysterious way to decide what to do in those situations in which the same moral dilemma can be seen from both perspectives.
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designer babies - 0 views

groups.diigo.com/...new-media-ethics-2009-course genetic engineering designer baby
shared by lee weiting on 21 Oct 09 - No Cached
  • lee weiting on 21 Oct 09
     
    this topic will be discussed in the presentation in class. However, i feel that maybe i should also start a discussion here regarding the topic on designer baby. This is an article regarding designer baby. Designer baby has raised many ethical issues, such as the right of fetus etc. Many people are against designer baby. However this article points out an advantage of designer baby that is to save sick people. if it can save a live, i do not think is unethical to do it. On the other hand, i will think is unethical if one knows of the presence of some serious genetic mutation and still choose to pass it on to the future generation. i think the most basic form of ethics is not to do harm to people whenever possible. strive for a balance, strive for the best. In my point of view, this is what determine if an action is ethical or not. from this perspective, i will think that designer baby is ethical and should be allowed. Any other views? =)
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Ethics and Values Case Study- Mercy Killing, Euthanasia - 8 views

www.brainmass.com/...86151 Euthanasia
shared by yongernn teo on 21 Oct 09 - Cached
  • yongernn teo on 21 Oct 09
     
    THE ETHICAL PROBLEM: Allowing someone to die, mercy death, and mercy killing, Euthanasia: A 24-year-old man named Robert who has a wife and child is paralyzed from the neck down in a motorcycle accident. He has always been very active and hates the idea of being paralyzed. He also is in a great deal of pain, an he has asked his doctors and other members of his family to "put him out of his misery." After several days of such pleading, his brother comes into Robert's hospital ward and asks him if he is sure he still wants to be put out of his misery. Robert says yes and pleads with his brother to kill him. The brother kisses and blesses Robert, then takes out a gun and shoots him, killing him instantly. The brother later is tried for murder and acquitted by reason of temporary insanity. Was what Robert's brother did moral? Do you think he should have been brought to trial at all? Do you think he should have been acquitted? Would you do the same for a loved one if you were asked? THE DISCUSSION: In my opinion, the most dubious part about the case would be the part on Robert pleading with his brother, asking his brother to kill him. This could be his brother's own account of the incident and could/could not have been a plea by Robert. 1) With assumption that Robert indeed pleaded with his brother to kill him, an ethical analysis as such could be derived: That Robert's brother was only respecting Robert's choice and killed him because he wanted to relieve him from his misery. This could be argued to be ethical using a teleoloigical framework where the focus is on the end-result and the consequences that entails the action. Here, although the act of killing per se may be wrong and illegal, Robert was able to relieved of his pain and suffering. 2) With an assumption that Robert did not plea with his brother to kill him and that it was his brother's own decision to relieve Robert of all-suffering: In this case, the b
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  • Elaine Ong on 22 Oct 09
     
    I find euthanasia to be a very interesting ethical dilemma. Even I myself am caught in the middle. Euthanasia has been termed as 'mercy killing' and even 'happy death'. Others may simply just term it as being 'evil'. Is it right to end someone's life even when he or she pleads you to do so? In the first place, is it even right to commit suicide? Once someone pulls off the main support that's keeping the person alive, such as the feeding tube, there is no turning back. Hmm..Come to think of it, technology is kind of unethical by being made available, for in the past, when someone is dying, they had the right to die naturally. Now, scientific technology is 'forcing' us to stay alive and cling on to a life that may be deemed being worthless if we were standing outside our bodies looking at our comatose selves. Then again, this may just be MY personal standpoint. But I have to argue, who gave technology the right to make me a worthless vegetable!(and here I am, attaching a value/judgement onto an immobile human being..) Hence, being incompetent in making decisions for my unconscious self (or perhaps even brain dead), who should take responsibility for my life, for my existence? And on what basis are they allowed to help me out? Taking the other side of the argument, against euthanasia, we can say that the act of ending someone else's life is the act of destroying societal respect for life. Based on the utilitarian perspective, we are not thinking of the overall beneficence for society and disregarding the moral considerations encompassed within the state's interest to preserve the sanctity of all life. It has been said that life in itself takes priority over all other values. We should let the person live so as to give him/her a chance to wake up or hope for recovery (think comatose patients). But then again we can also argue that life is not the top of the hierarchy! A life without rights is as if not living a life at all? By removing the patient
  • juliet huang on 28 Oct 09
     
    as a human being, you supposedly have a right to live, whether you are mobile or immobile. however, i think that, in the case of euthanasia, you 'give up' your rights when you "show" that you are no longer able to serve the pre-requisites of having the right. for example, if "living" rights are equate to you being able to talk, walk, etc etc, then, obviously the opposite means you no longer are able to perform up to the expectations of that right. then again, it is very subjective as to who gets to make that criteria!
  • Magdaleine on 02 Nov 09
     
    hmm interesting.. however, a question i have is who and when can this "right" be "given up"? when i am a victim in a car accident, and i lost the ability to breathe, walk and may need months to recover. i am unconscious and the doctor is unable to determine when am i gonna regain consciousness. when should my parents decide i can no longer be able to have any living rights? and taking elaine's point into consideration, is committing suicide even 'right'? if it is legally not right, when i ask someone to take my life and wrote a letter that it was cus i wanted to die, does that make it committing suicide only in the hands of others?
  • Low Yunying on 04 Nov 09
     
    Similarly, I question the 'rights' that you have to 'give up' when you no longer 'serve the pre-requisites of having the right'. If the living rights means being able to talk and walk, then where does it leave infants? Where does it leave people who may be handicapped? Have their lost their rights to living?

Powering our way out of poverty - 3 views

started by Jody Poh on 03 Nov 09 no follow-up yet
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China calls out US human rights abuses: laptop searches, 'Net porn - 0 views

arstechnica.com/...s-laptop-searches-net-porn.ars Human Rights China United States
shared by Weiye Loh on 13 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • The report makes no real attempt to provide context to a huge selection of news articles about bad things happening in the US, piled up one against each other in almost random fashion.
  • As the UK's Guardian paper noted, "While some of the data cited in the report is derived from official or authoritative sources, other sections are composed from a mishmash of online material. One figure on crime rates is attributed to '10 Facts About Crime in the United States that Will Blow Your Mind, Beforitsnews.com'." The opening emphasis on US crime is especially odd; crime rates in the US are the lowest they have been in decades; the drop-off has been so dramatic that books have been written in attempts to explain it.
  • But the report does provide an interesting perspective on the US, especially when it comes to technology, and it's not all off base. China points to US laptop border searches as a problem (and they are): According to figures released by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in September 2010, more than 6,600 travelers had been subject to electronic device searches between October 1, 2008 and June 2, 2010, nearly half of them American citizens. A report on The Wall Street Journal on September 7, 2010, said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was sued over its policies that allegedly authorize the search and seizure of laptops, cellphones and other electronic devices without a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. The policies were claimed to leave no limit on how long the DHS can keep a traveler's devices or on the scope of private information that can be searched, copied, or detained. There is no provision for judicial approval or supervision. When Colombian journalist Hollman Morris sought a US student visa so he could take a fellowship for journalists at Harvard University, his application was denied on July 17, 2010, as he was ineligible under the "terrorist activities" section of the USA Patriot Act. An Arab American named Yasir Afifi, living in California, found the FBI attached an electronic GPS tracking device near the right rear wheel of his car.
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  • China also sees hypocrisy in American discussions of Internet freedom. China comes in regularly for criticism over its "Great Firewall," but it suggests that the US government also restricts the Internet. While advocating Internet freedom, the US in fact imposes fairly strict restriction on cyberspace. On June 24, 2010, the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs approved the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, which will give the federal government "absolute power" to shut down the Internet under a declared national emergency. Handing government the power to control the Internet will only be the first step towards a greatly restricted Internet system, whereby individual IDs and government permission would be required to operate a website. The United States applies double standards on Internet freedom by requesting unrestricted "Internet freedom" in other countries, which becomes an important diplomatic tool for the United States to impose pressure and seek hegemony, and imposing strict restriction within its territory. An article on BBC on February 16, 2011 noted the US government wants to boost Internet freedom to give voices to citizens living in societies regarded as "closed" and questions those governments' control over information flow, although within its borders the US government tries to create a legal frame to fight the challenge posed by WikiLeaks. The US government might be sensitive to the impact of the free flow of electronic information on its territory for which it advocates, but it wants to practice diplomacy by other means, including the Internet, particularly the social networks. (The cyberspace bill never became law, and a revised version is still pending in Congress.)
  • Finally, there's pornography, which China bans. Pornographic content is rampant on the Internet and severely harms American children. Statistics show that seven in 10 children have accidentally accessed pornography on the Internet and one in three has done so intentionally. And the average age of exposure is 11 years old - some start at eight years old (The Washington Times, June 16, 2010). According to a survey commissioned by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, 20 percent of American teens have sent or posted nude or seminude pictures or videos of themselves. (www.co.jefferson.co.us, March 23, 2010). At least 500 profit-oriented nude chat websites were set up by teens in the United States, involving tens of thousands of pornographic pictures.
  • Weiye Loh on 13 Apr 11
     
    Upset over the US State Department's annual human rights report, China publishes a report of its own on various US ills. This year, it calls attention to America's border laptop searches, its attitude toward WikiLeaks, and the prevalence of online pornography. In case the report's purpose wasn't clear, China Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said this weekend, "We advise the US side to reflect on its own human rights issue, stop acting as a preacher of human rights as well as interfering in other countries' internal affairs by various means including issuing human rights reports."
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Net-Neutrality: The First Amendment of the Internet | LSE Media Policy Project - 0 views

blogs.lse.ac.uk/...irst-amendment-of-the-internet Net Neutrality
shared by Weiye Loh on 30 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • debates about the nature, the architecture and the governing principles of the internet are not merely technical or economic discussions.  Above all, these debates have deep political, social, and cultural implications and become a matter of public, national and global interest.
  • In many ways, net neutrality could be considered the first amendment of the internet; no pun intended here. However, just as with freedom of speech the principle of net neutrality cannot be approached as absolute or as a fetish. Even in a democracy we cannot say everything applies all the time in all contexts. Limiting the core principle of freedom of speech in a democracy is only possible in very specific circumstances, such as harm, racism or in view of the public interest. Along the same lines, compromising on the principle of net neutrality should be for very specific and clearly defined reasons that are transparent and do not serve commercial private interests, but rather public interests or are implemented in view of guaranteeing an excellent quality of service for all.
  • One of the only really convincing arguments of those challenging net neutrality is that due to the dramatic increases in streaming activity and data-exchange through peer-to-peer networks, the overall quality of service risks being compromised if we stick to data being treated on a first come first serve basis. We are being told that popular content will need to be stored closer to the consumer, which evidently comes at an extra cost.
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  • Implicitly two separate debates are being collapsed here and I would argue that we need to separate both. The first one relates to the stability of the internet as an information and communication infrastructure because of the way we collectively use that infrastructure. The second debate is whether ISPs and telecommunication companies should be allowed to differentiate in their pricing between different levels of quality of access, both towards consumers and content providers.
  • Just as with freedom of speech, circumstances can be found in which the principle while still cherished and upheld, can be adapted and constrained to some extent. To paraphrase Tim Wu (2008), the aspiration should still be ‘to treat all content, sites, and platforms equally’, but maybe some forms of content should be treated more equally than others in order to guarantee an excellent quality of service for all. However, the societal and political implications of this need to be thought through in detail and as with freedom of speech itself, it will, I believe, require strict regulation and conditions.
  • In regards to the first debate on internet stability, a case can be made for allowing internet operators to differentiate between different types of data with different needs – if for any reason the quality of service of the internet as a whole cannot be guaranteed anymore. 
  • Concerning the second debate on differential pricing, it is fair to say that from a public interest and civic liberty perspective the consolidation and institutionalization of a commercially driven two-tiered internet is not acceptable and impossible to legitimate. As is allowing operators to differentiate in the quality of provision of certain kind of content above others.  A core principle such as net neutrality should never be relinquished for the sake of private interests and profit-making strategies – on behalf of industry or for others. If we need to compromise on net neutrality it would always have to be partial, to be circumscribed and only to improve the quality of service for all, not just for the few who can afford it.
  • Separating these two debates exposes the crux of the current net-neutrality debate. In essence, we are being urged to give up on the principle of net-neutrality to guarantee a good quality of service.  However, this argument is actually a pre-text for the telecom industry to make content-providers pay for the facilitation of access to their audiences – the internet subscribers. And this again can be linked to another debate being waged amongst content providers: how do we make internet users pay for the content they access online? I won’t open that can of worms here, but I will make my point clear.  Telecommunication industry efforts to make content providers pay for access to their audiences do not offer legitimate reasons to suspend the first amendment of the internet.
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The messy business of cleaning up carbon policy (and how to sell it to the electorate) ... - 0 views

www.abc.net.au/...45810.html Carbon Tax Global Warming Politics
shared by Weiye Loh on 04 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • 1. Putting a price on carbon is not only about the climate.Yes, humans are affecting the climate and reducing carbon dioxide emissions is a key commitment of this government, and indeed the stated views of the opposition. But there are other reasons to price carbon, primarily to put Australia at the forefront of a global energy technology revolution that is already underway.In future years and decades the world is going to need vastly more energy that is secure, reliable, clean and affordable. Achieving these outcomes will require an energy technology revolution. The purpose of pricing carbon is to raise the revenues needed to invest in this future, just as we invest in health, agriculture and defence.
  • 2. A price on carbon raises revenues to invest in stimulating that energy technology revolution.Australia emits almost 400 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. In round numbers, every dollar carbon tax per tonne on those emissions would raise about A$100 million. A significant portion of the proceeds from a carbon tax should be used to invest in energy technology innovation, using today’s energy economy to build a bridge to tomorrow’s economy. This is exactly the strategy that India has adopted with a small levy on coal and Germany has adopted with a tax on nuclear fuel rods, with proceeds in both instances invested into energy innovation.
  • 3. The purpose of a carbon tax is not to make energy, food, petrol or consumer goods appreciably more expensive.Just as scientists are in broad agreement that humans are affecting the global climate, economists and other experts are in broad agreement that we cannot revolutionise our energy economy through pricing mechanisms alone. Thus, we propose starting with a low carbon tax - one that has broad political support - and then committing to increasing it in a predictable manner over time.The Coalition has proposed a “direct action plan” on carbon policy that would cost A$30 billion over the next 8 years, which is the equivalent of about a $2.50 per tonne carbon tax. The question to be put to the Coalition is not whether we should be investing in a carbon policy, as we agree on that point, but how much and how it should be paid for. The Coalition’s plans leave unanswered how they would pay for their plan.A carbon tax offers a responsible and effective manner to raise funds without harming the economy or jobs. In fact, to the extent that investments in energy innovation bear fruit, new markets will be opened and new jobs will be created. The Coalition’s plan is not focused on energy technology innovation.The question for the Coalition should thus be, at what level would you set a carbon tax (or what other taxes would you raise?), and how would you invest the proceeds in a manner that accelerates energy technology innovation?
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  • 4. Even a low carbon tax will make some goods cost a bit more, so it is important to help those who are most affected.Our carbon tax proposal is revenue neutral in the sense that we will lower other taxes in direct proportion to the impact, however modest, of a low carbon tax. We will do this with particular attention to those who may be most directly affected by a price on carbon.In addition, some portion of the revenue raised by a carbon tax will be returned to the public. But not all. It is important to invest in tomorrow’s energy technologies today and a carbon tax provides the mechanism for doing so.
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Want people to get on board with a shift to clean energy? Shield them from economic ins... - 0 views

www.grist.org/...eld-them-from-risk-instability Climate Change Policy Politics Environment
shared by Weiye Loh on 01 May 11 - No Cached
  • The reality is that a bold new energy and climate change policy would inevitably result in dislocations in certain industries and upset long-established ways of life in many regions; in addition, it would lead to higher prices for basic commodities such as gas, home heating oil, and food. In societies where there are strong social safety nets -- universal healthcare, universal preschool, strong support for new parents, significant investments in public transportation, and sustained support for higher education -- the changes wrought by a paradigm shift in energy will tend not to result in hugely destabilizing effects across whole towns and communities. In fact, with good planning and investments in critical infrastructure, strong environmental policies can result in overall improvements in the quality of life for nearly everyone. Throughout much of the developed world, citizens are willing to pay prices for gasoline that would lead to riots in American streets, because they know that the government revenue raised by high gas taxes is used for programs that directly benefit them. In other words, ten-dollar-a-gallon gas isn’t such a big deal when everyone has great healthcare, great public transportation, and free high-quality schooling.
  • Americans are so battered and anxious right now. Median wages are flat, unemployment is high, politics is paralyzed. Middle-class families are one health problem away from ruin, and when they fall, there's no net. That kind of insecurity, as much as anything, explains the American reticence to launch bold new social programs.
  • Michael Levi points to a fantastic piece by Nassim Taleb and Mark Blyth wherein they approach a similar subject from a seemingly contrary angle, arguing that government efforts to suppress social and economic volatility can backfire. Without the experience of adjusting to small shocks as they come, we won't be prepared when the big shocks arrive:
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  • Complex systems that have artificially suppressed volatility tend to become extremely fragile, while at the same time exhibiting no visible risks. In fact, they tend to be too calm and exhibit minimal variability as silent risks accumulate beneath the surface. Although the stated intention of political leaders and economic policymakers is to stabilize the system by inhibiting fluctuations, the result tends to be the opposite. These artificially constrained systems become prone to "Black Swans" -- that is, they become extremely vulnerable to large-scale events that lie far from the statistical norm and were largely unpredictable to a given set of observers. Such environments eventually experience massive blowups, catching everyone off-guard and undoing years of stability or, in some cases, ending up far worse than they were in their initial volatile state. Indeed, the longer it takes for the blowup to occur, the worse the resulting harm in both economic and political systems.
  • If a society provides a basic measure of health and economic security for its citizens, its citizens will be more tolerant of a little volatility/risk/ambition in its social and economic policy.
  • This gets at why I think its extremely difficult to reconcile modern-day conservatism and serious efforts to address climate change (and future resource shortages, and other various other sources of long-term risk). The U.S. conservative politic program is devoted to increasing economic and social insecurity for average people and decreasing it for wealthy business owners. That is roughly the opposite of the approach you'd want to take if you want to increase society's resilience to the dangers approaching.
  • Weiye Loh on 01 May 11
     
    First there's this extremely smart piece from economist Jason Scorse. It makes an argument that I wish had gotten much more attention during the fight over the climate bill, to wit: "people are much more willing to support environmental policies that come with large risks and disruptions to their way of life when other policies are in place to shield them from excessive risk and instability."
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Rationally Speaking: A pluralist approach to ethics - 0 views

rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/...ralist-approach-to-ethics.html Ethics Pluralism
shared by Weiye Loh on 07 May 11 - No Cached
  • The history of Western moral philosophy includes numerous attempts to ground ethics in one rational principle, standard, or rule. This narrative stretches back 2,500 years to the Greeks, who were interested mainly in virtue ethics and the moral character of the person. The modern era has seen two major additions. In 1785, Immanuel Kant introduced the categorical imperative: act only under the assumption that what you do could be made into a universal law. And in 1789, Jeremy Bentham proposed utilitarianism: work toward the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people (the “utility” principle).
  • Many people now think projects to build a reasonable and coherent moral system are doomed. Still, most secular and religious people reject the alternative of moral relativism, and have spent much ink criticizing it (among my favorite books on the topic is Moral Relativism by Stephen Lukes). The most recent and controversial work in this area comes from Sam Harris. In The Moral Landscape, Harris argues for a morality based on (a science of) well-being and flourishing, rather than religious dogma.
  • I am interested in another oft-heard criticism of Harris’ book, which is that words like “well-being” and “flourishing” are too general to form any relevant basis for morality. This criticism has some force to it, as these certainly are somewhat vague terms. But what if “well-being” and “flourishing” were to be used only as a starting point for a moral framework? These concepts would still put us on a better grounding than religious faith. But they cannot stand alone. Nor do they need to.
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  • 1. The harm principle bases our ethical considerations on other beings’ capacity for higher-level subjective experience. Human beings (and some animals) have the potential — and desire — to experience deep pleasure and happiness while seeking to avoid pain and suffering. We have the obligation, then, to afford creatures with these capacities, desires and relations a certain level of respect. They also have other emotional and social interests: for instance, friends and families concerned with their health and enjoyment. These actors also deserve consideration.
  • 2. If we have a moral obligation to act a certain way toward someone, that should be reflected in law. Rights theory is the idea that there are certain rights worth granting to people with very few, if any, caveats. Many of these rights were spelled out in the founding documents of this country, the Declaration of Independence (which admittedly has no legal pull) and the Constitution (which does). They have been defended in a long history of U.S. Supreme Court rulings. They have also been expanded on in the U.N.’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the founding documents of other countries around the world. To name a few, they include: freedom of belief, speech and expression, due process, equal treatment, health care, and education.
  • 3. While we ought to consider our broader moral efforts, and focus on our obligations to others, it is also important to place attention on our quality as moral agents. A vital part of fostering a respectable pluralist moral framework is to encourage virtues, and cultivate moral character. A short list of these virtues would include prudence, justice, wisdom, honesty, compassion, and courage. One should study these, and strive to put these into practice and work to be a better human being, as Aristotle advised us to do.
  • most people already are ethical pluralists. Life and society are complex to navigate, and one cannot rely on a single idea for guidance. It is probably accurate to say that people lean more toward one theory, rather than practice it to the exclusion of all others. Of course, this only describes the fact that people think about morality in a pluralistic way. But the outlined approach is supported, sound reasoning — that is, unless you are ready to entirely dismiss 2,500 years of Western moral philosophy.
  • Weiye Loh on 07 May 11
     
    while each ethical system discussed so far has its shortcomings, put together they form a solid possibility. One system might not be able to do the job required, but we can assemble a mature moral outlook containing parts drawn from different systems put forth by philosophers over the centuries (plus some biology, but that's Massimo's area). The following is a rough sketch of what I think a decent pluralist approach to ethics might look like.
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Google to be formally investigated over potential abuse of web dominance | Technology |... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...ation-federal-trade-commission Google Monopoly Anti-Competition Antitrust
shared by Weiye Loh on 25 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • The inquiry will examine the heart of Google's search-advertising business, and the source of most of Google's revenue. Google accounts for around two-thirds of internet searches in the US (and close to 90% in the UK) and according to critics unfairly uses that dominance to favour its own growing network of services.Last November, the European commission opened its own formal investigation into allegations that Google discriminated against competing services in its search results and prevented some websites from using ads by Google competitors.
  • Legal experts said the investigation could be similar in scale to the massive antitrust probe of Microsoft, which started in 1991 and ended in a settlement a decade later. Professor Joshua Wright of George Mason Law School said: "The investigation will be of a comparable scale to that of Microsoft."But he said the chances of Google being found guilty of antitrust behaviour, as Microsoft was, were far smaller. Wright said for the US to bring a successful case against Google, it would have to prove the company was harming consumers. "As an outsider I would say that obstacle is far higher for them today with Google than it was back then with Microsoft," he said.
  • He said Google faced a higher risk in the EU case but that in either case the investigations were likely to have a profound impact on the firm."Even if the charges are ultimately bogus, they will occupy many, many hours of managements time and attention," he said.The FTC's investigations are likely to widen to other companies as official requests for information about their dealings with Google.The company has long denied any anticompetitive behaviour, arguing that users can easily click on other choices on the web.
  • Weiye Loh on 25 Jun 11
     
    US regulators are poised to launch a formal investigation into whether Google has abused its dominance on the web, according to reports. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is days away from serving subpoenas on the internet giant in what could be the biggest investigation yet of the search company's business, according to The Wall Street Journal. Both Google and the FTC declined to comment. A wide-ranging investigation into Google has been discussed for months. Google has faced several antitrust probes in recent years, and is already the subject of a similar investigation in Europe. In the US inquiries have so far largely been limited to reviews of the company's mergers and acquisitions.
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