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Flourishing of Universities
McDonald Centre Annual Conference, 2012 Last week, the McDonald Centre was honoured to host one of its most exciting events. Eleven leading scholars from top universities in the US and UK gathered to study the recent plight of universities. It was the first time that these scholars, all of whom have been supported in various…
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Religion Deserves a Place in Secular Medicine
Last month, Nigel Biggar was the keynote speaker for an event at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. In his lecture, Biggar discussed what it means for religious believers to engage with others on moral debates generally, as well as on specific matters related to medical ethics, such as abortion and euthanasia. The event, entitled Why Religion Deserves…
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Colloquium: The Ethics of Intelligence Gathering
A McDonald Centre Research Colloquium Are there ethics for spies? Are there limits to how we may keep ourselves safe? These were among the questions discussed at a recent private colloquium, hosted by the McDonald Centre, entitled, ‘How May We Keep Ourselves Safe? The Ethics of Intelligence Gathering.’ There is widespread public recognition of the…
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‘After Libya: The Ethics of Military Intervention Revisited’
In an ongoing collaboration between Chatham House and the McDonald Centre, top scholars and other experts investigated the ethics of humanitarian intervention in a one-day colloquium in February 2011 entitled ‘After Libya: The Ethics of Military Intervention Revisited.’ Because the event was held under the Chatham House Rule, the full list of participants is confidential, but one of the observers…
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What Makes Torture Wrong?
The Financial Times Magazine has recently been exploring the morality, and the alleged effectiveness, of torture in cases where it would seem to save lives. John Lloyd, an news editor at Financial Times who has worked with the McDonald Centre on ethics and the media, wrote the initial article. Nigel Biggar’s response is now generating comments in the magazine’s letters column.
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Conference: Is Christian Forgiveness Immoral
McDonald Center Annual Conference, 2010 The McDonald Centre’s annual spring conference in 2010 was held on 13-14 May. Entitled ‘Is Christian Forgiveness Immoral?’, it attracted 70 participants, including six speakers, one from Denmark and two from Northern Ireland, and several members of the Centre’s Advisory Council. The conference dealt with a cluster of questions: Is forgiveness ever appropriate…
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Colloquium: Should we defend an established church?
On 23 March, the McDonald Centre hosted a colloquium to consider the rationale for the establishment of the Church of England—at a time when voices on the political left are calling for Anglican bishops to be ejected from the House of Lords. Among the questions tackled were: What are the public benefits of church establishment? How can the…
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McDonald Centre Officially Launched
On Tuesday 14 October 2008, the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Life was officially launched in the Examination Schools at the University of Oxford. Over eighty people attended the event, which featured my inaugural address as Director of the Centre, while supporting remarks were offered by Dr Paul Joyce, Chair of the Board of…