Our minds are buffeted by all kinds of influences, though some seem more menacing than others.
wenjin chen/DigitalVision Vectoria via Getty Images
Brain-computer interfaces may present threats to cognitive liberty. But with or without them, we often overestimate how independent our own minds are, an ethicist writes.
Portland, Maine, officials ordered that a park be cleared on Sept. 28, 2022, of people who were homeless and that any trash be removed before a visit by a candidate for governor.
AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty
To be homeless is a condition in which a person’s freedom is profoundly compromised. And that’s un-American, says a philosopher.
Abortion-rights activists gather outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., in June 2022 after the court ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years.
(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The U.S. Supreme Court turned its back on America’s core constitutional ideals — liberty and equality— when it erroneously ruled women have no constitutional right to abortion.
Anti-Catholic riots, like this one in Philadelphia in 1844, worried Canadians.
H. Bucholzer via Library of Congress
‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’ were the founding principles of the US. In Canada, the goals are ‘Peace, Order, and good Government.’
GettyImages
There is a difference between ‘negative liberty’ and ‘positive liberty’. Real freedom involves unavoidable trade-offs between the two.
Rioters are tear-gassed as they storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
Almost eight years before the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack, nearly one-third of Americans surveyed – and 44% of Republicans – said armed rebellion might soon be necessary in the US to protect liberties.
Yellow_cat/Shutterstock.com
How on earth did an obscure Roman social practice end up lending its name to a modern psychedelic?
shutterstock.
What are the political implications of AI knowing us better than we know ourselves?
Marco Longari/GettyImages
For the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994, citizens have had to accept stringent restrictions on their normal civil liberties.
Camera never lies.
sdecoret
If you thought police surveillance was mere CCTV, it’s time to catch up on what’s happening on the other side of the lens.
The Yard are hungry for data. We shouldn’t feed it.
Nick Ansell/PA
Allowing the police unfettered use of vast databases of information will begin to tilt the balance of power towards totalitarianism.
Andrew Milligan/PA
We’re willing to fight for our freedom even at great cost.
Telomeres, a part of DNA that hold the key to biological aging.
Lightspring/Shutterstock.com
Several companies are trying to develop life extension methods that could enable some people to live far longer. There are some ethical dilemmas.
A protest in Toulouse in January 2016 against the state of emergency in France.
Gyrostat/Wikimedia
Weakening the institutional as well as the symbolic functioning of the rule of law has the consequence of introducing new “risks”, and thus creating more insecurity.
Still marching …
Gareth Fuller PA Wire/PA Images
You may not be free but buying lots of stuff can create the illusion that you are.