author

 
Menu
Search
 
November 21, 2024
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

Meta

Peter Singer
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 23, 2012
Preference should go to real, rational women
In the Dominican Republic last month, a pregnant teenager suffering from leukemia had her chemotherapy delayed, because doctors feared that the treatment could terminate her pregnancy and therefore violate the nation's strict anti-abortion law. After consultations between doctors, lawyers, and the girl's...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2012
Court judgment in Canada may set guidelines for physician-assisted death in terminal cases
Gloria Taylor, a Canadian, has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Over a period of a few years, her muscles will weaken until she can no longer walk, use her hands, chew, swallow, speak and, ultimately, breathe. Then she will die.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 14, 2012
Rampant use and abuse of religious freedom
What are the proper limits of religious freedom? Marianne Thieme, leader of the Party for the Animals in the Netherlands, offers this answer: "Religious freedom stops where human or animal suffering begins."
COMMENTARY / World
May 14, 2012
Are humans getting better at beating violence?
With daily headlines focusing on war, terrorism and the abuses of repressive governments, and religious leaders frequently bemoaning declining standards of public and private behavior, it is easy to get the impression that we are witnessing a moral collapse.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2012
How much should one's birth gender matter?
Jenna Talackova reached the finals of Miss Universe Canada last month, before being disqualified because she was not a "natural born" female. The tall, beautiful blonde told the media that she had considered herself a female since she was four years old, had begun hormone treatment at 14, and had sex...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 16, 2012
Use law enforcement and fees to sink Net pirates
Last year, I told a colleague that I would include Internet ethics in a course that I was teaching. She suggested that I read a recently published anthology on computer ethics — and attached the entire volume to the email.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 19, 2012
Commitment hatched Europe's ethical eggs
Forty years ago, I stood with a few other students in a busy Oxford street handing out leaflets protesting the use of battery cages to hold hens. Most of those who took the leaflets did not know that their eggs came from hens kept in cages so small that even one bird — the cages normally housed four...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 17, 2011
Time to ban world's deadliest recreational drug
U.S. President Barack Obama's doctor confirmed last month that the president no longer smokes. At the urging of his wife, Michelle Obama, the president first resolved to stop smoking in 2006, and has used nicotine replacement therapy to help him. If it took Obama, a man strong-willed enough to aspire...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 17, 2011
Unjustness of death penalty underlined again
Three significant events relating to the death penalty occurred in the United States during September. The one that gained the most publicity was the execution in Georgia of Troy Davis, who had been convicted of the 1989 murder of Mark McPhail, an off-duty police officer.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 13, 2011
Toward a planet safe for great apes
Two new movies released this month — one a science-fiction blockbuster, the other a revealing documentary — raise the issue of our relations with our closest nonhuman relatives, the great apes. Both dramatize insights and lessons that should not be ignored.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 2011
Gauging moral progress by animal welfare
Mahatma Gandhi acutely observed that "the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 20, 2011
Objective defense of why some things matter
Can moral judgments be true or false? Or is ethics, at bottom, a purely subjective matter, for individuals to choose, or perhaps relative to the culture of the society in which one lives?
COMMENTARY / World
May 16, 2011
When prevention is more effective than relief
When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in March, Brian Tucker was in Padang, Indonesia. Tucker was working with a colleague to design a refuge that could save thousands of lives if — or rather, when — a tsunami like the one in 1797 that came out of the Indian Ocean, some 1,000 km southeast of...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 16, 2011
The enemies of a digital universal library
Scholars have long dreamed of a universal library containing everything that has ever been written. Then, in 2004, Google announced that it would begin digitally scanning all the books held by five major research libraries. Suddenly, the library of utopia seemed within reach.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 4, 2011
Justifying an intervention in Libya for justice' sake
MELBOURNE — The world has watched in horror as Libya's Colonel Moammar Gadhafi uses his military to attack protesters opposed to his rule, killing hundreds or possibly thousands of unarmed civilians.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 16, 2011
The world needs more elephant mothers
MELBOURNE — Many years ago, my wife and I were driving somewhere with our three young daughters in the back, when one of them suddenly asked: "Would you rather that we were clever or that we were happy?"
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 6, 2011
Penalties pay off for New Year's resolutions
MELBOURNE — Sometimes we know the best thing to do, but fail to do it. New Year's resolutions are often like that. We make resolutions because we know that it would be better for us to lose weight, or get fit, or spend more time with our children. The problem is that a resolution is generally easier...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 16, 2010
Is open diplomacy possible or even desirable?
PRINCETON, New Jersey — When the furor erupted over WikiLeaks' recent release of a quarter-million diplomatic cables, I was reminded of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's 1918 speech in which he put forward "Fourteen Points" for a just peace to end World War I.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 16, 2010
Consumers should demand diamond clarity
PRINCETON, New Jersey — Diamonds have an image of purity and light. They are given as a pledge of love and worn as a symbol of commitment. Yet diamonds have led to gruesome murders, rapes and amputations.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 9, 2010
Leaders' broken promises are costing lives
PRINCETON, N.J. — In 2000, the world's leaders met in New York and issued a ringing Millennium Declaration, promising to halve the proportion of people suffering from extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.
Ishiba delays meeting with Trump, citing legal restrictions
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba waves upon arrival for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, in Callao, Peru, on Friday.
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Rising sex tourism exposes loopholes in Japan's anti-prostitution law
While financial misfortunes during the COVID-19 pandemic may have driven some women to work the streets, others simply want more money to spend — or want to pay off their debts — at host clubs.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’
Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER