The Conversation

The everyday ethical challenges of self-driving cars

Written by Johannes Himmelreich, Interdisciplinary Ethics Fellow, Stanford University McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society

Decisions made by engineers today will determine how all cars drive.Grendelkhan, CC BY-SA

A lot of discussion and ethical thought about self-driving cars have focused on tragic dilemmas, like hypotheticals in which a car has to decide whether to run over a group of schoolchildren or plunge off a cliff, killing its own occupants. But those sorts of...

Culture of trust is key for school safety

Written by Calvin Morrill, Stefan A. Riesenfeld Professor of Law and Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley

Tight security measures in schools erode cultures of trust, researchers contend.Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

When we first visited the school that is the focus of our forthcoming book, “Navigating Conflict: How Youth Handle Trouble in a High-Poverty School,” back in 1995, students were free to move about campus during lunch and...

Self-driving cars can't be perfectly safe – what's good enough? 3 questions answered

Written by Nicholas G. Evans, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Is it going to stop?marat marihal/Shutterstock.com

Editor’s note: On March 19, an Uber self-driving vehicle being tested in Arizona struck and killed Elaine Herzberg, who was walking her bike across the street. This is the first time a self-driving vehicle has killed a pedestrian, and it raises questions about the ethics of developing and...

Los 'juegos' políticos con el agua del que son víctimas los mexicanos

Written by Veronica Herrera, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Connecticut

Las inundaciones ocurren con bastante frecuencia en Nezahualcoyotl, una ciudad mexicana cerca de la capital.AP Photos/Eduardo Verdugo

Cuando Ciudad del Cabo reconoció en febrero que se quedaría sin agua en unos meses, Sudáfrica se convirtió repentinamente en un ejemplo de modelo global de la mala gestión de este...

A return to earmarks could grease the wheels in Congress

Written by Diana Evans, Professor of political science, Trinity College

Members of Congress debated a government spending bill into the early morning on March 20. AP/J. Scott Applewhite

Congress passed a US$1.3 trillion spending bill last Thursday, March 22 – only narrowly averting a third government shutdown this year. President Trump signed the bill into law on Friday.

Congress’s inability to pass...

Betsy DeVos said Common Core was 'dead' – it's not

Written by Nicholas Tampio, Associate Professor of Political Science, Fordham University

A COMMON

In a speech in Washington earlier this year, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos called the education standards known as the Common Core a “disaster” and proclaimed: “At the U.S. Department of Education, Common Core is dead.”

The reality, however, is that the Common Core is still very much alive. As indicated in a...

New federal program tackles spiraling costs of college textbooks

Written by MacKenzie Smith, University Librarian and Vice Provost for Digital Scholarship, University of California, Davis

A new $5 million federal program will bring free digital textbooks to students.Daniel M. Ernst/Shutterstock

College students will keep more money in their pockets thanks to a new US$5 million pilot program approved as part of the $1.3 trillion appropriations bill that President Donald J. Trump signed on March 23.

The new grant program, administered...

Do you believe in miracles? Why they make perfect sense for many

Written by Richard Gunderman, Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana University

Depiction of the miracle of the Resurrection, the central belief in Christianity.Romalo Tavani/Shutterstock.com

This year, one of the most essential holy days in the Christian calendar, Easter, coincides with perhaps the silliest of annual secular celebrations, April Fools’ Day. Easter commemorates a miraculous event, the resurrection of...

The ideal female body type is getting even harder to attain

Written by Frances Bozsik, PhD Candidate in Clinical Health Psychology, University of Missouri-Kansas City

Is muscle definition now being added to an already impossibly thin ideal?Mikhaylovskiy/Shutterstock.com

Day after day, we’re bombarded with so many media messages that rarely do we stop to think about what they’re telling us to think, do or feel.

Much has been written about the unrealistic beauty standards women have been held to. Female...

Fewer diplomats, more armed force defines US leadership today

Written by Monica Duffy Toft, Professor of International Politics and Director, Center for Strategic Studies, Fletcher School, Tufts University

Members of the U.S. Army Special Forces on Aug. 30, 2002 in Afghanistan. AP Photo/Wally Santana

A strong legacy of U.S. leadership and engagement in global politics has been reduced today to what I call kinetic diplomacy – diplomacy by armed force.

As of March 2018, the Trump administration has appointed only 70 of 188 U.S. ambassadors. At...