Loved by some philosophers, loathed by others, the so-called trolley problem is the quintessential moral puzzle. A runaway train is heading towards five people tied to a track. You can change a signal, diverting the train down a spur, so saving five lives. Unfortunately, one person is on the spur, and would die. What [...]

Oxford University’s decision to display the Bodleian library’s collection of “immoral” books has reminded me of my stint in the restricted section. At 17, I successfully borrowed Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho from my local library in New Zealand, where it was (and still is) classified R18 and kept [...]

Italy’s most recent general election, in March, triggered a political revolution. The consequences are now being felt across the continent. And revolution is the right word to describe what happened. The established parties on both left and right were simply swept aside in favour of the Five Star Movement and the [...]

The sheer brutality of the violence unleashed against children is one of the hallmarks of today’s wars. About 350 million children are living in war zones from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Syria and Myanmar. Many of these children are on the receiving end of war crimes and other human [...]

Arron Banks, the chairman of Leave.EU, has taken the unusual step of writing to each household in my parliamentary constituency of Folkestone and Hythe, telling them that I am a “disgrace” and a “snake in the grass”. He claims that “I have never respected the result of the [Brexit] referendum.” However, he [...]

As goes Brazil, so goes democracy? It is no good outsiders pouring contempt on Jair Bolsonaro, victor in Sunday’s Brazilian presidential election. He is the choice of his people. For non-Brazilians, it is what he represents, not what he says, that [...]

On Sunday, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration was considering defining gender as biological and immutable – based on genitalia at birth. As a transgender individual, and particularly as a person who has been advocating for transgender rights for the past 25 years, this news came as a gut [...]

Sam J. Kohn from the Wisc24 has provided an amazing insight on so called Ukrainian-Russian conflict. It concerns business relations of the two nations involved. It tells us a rather enlightening story about a respectful businessman, Vladimir Petruk, who is active in both Russia and Ukraine and is a close friend of [...]

What happens when a highly respected professional body undertakes serious and rigorous research into race and racism in its industry? Then, in the light of depressing findings, the researchers call upon their profession, institutions and colleagues to confront “persistent inequalities in our habits and [...]

In 1989 five teenagers – four black and one Hispanic – were arrested for the brutal rape and assault of Trisha Meili, a white woman attacked while jogging in Central Park in New York. Less than two weeks later, Donald Trump took out full-page advertisements in all four of the city’s newspapers calling for a [...]