Latest Morality Stories

Displays of altruism or selflessness towards others can be sexually attractive in a mate. This is one of the findings of a study carried out by biologists and a psychologist at The University of Nottingham.In three studies of more than 1,000 people Dr Tim Phillips and his fellow researchers discovered that women place significantly greater importance on altruistic traits that anything else. Their findings have been published in the British Journal of Psychology.Dr Phillips said: ...

By Corbin, Ian Marcus Yale senior Aliza Shvarts has gone too far-or maybe she hasn't. According to a press release that Shvarts sent to the Yale Daily News on Wednesday, April 16, over a recent nine-month period, the senior art major artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" and then induced miscarriages by means of herbal abortifacient pills. At first blush, her actions bespeak a morbidly unsound mind, but what makes Shvarts' actions even more outrageous is that she is-by all...

Xinhua world news summary at 0800 GMT, July 25 WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Justice Department has allowed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to torture jailed terror suspects, according to the three torture memos made public Thursday. "These documents supply further evidence, if any were needed, that the Justice Department authorized the CIA to torture prisoners in its custody," said Jameel Jaffer from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). (US-Torture-Memos) - - - - MANILA -- A...

By Johnson, Thomas H An undergraduate anthropology student came to me with an assigned reading in a philosophy course at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. The student was confused. What he was learning in his philosophy class challenged what he had learned about cultural relativism as a core concept in anthropology and he was surprised to find it examined negatively by a philosopher. The article in his Ethics textbook was "The Challenge of Cultural Relativism" by philosopher James...

GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. Human Rights Committee on Friday told Washington it should immediately shut all "secret detention" facilities and give the International Committee of the Red Cross access to anybody held in armed conflict. In findings on U.S. observance of the U.N.'s main political rights' convention, the committee said it had "credible and uncontested" information that the United States had detained people "secretly and in secret places for months and years." "The state...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Using electric shock, beatings and suffocation, Chicago police tortured criminal suspects into giving confessions during the 1970s and 1980s, the authors of a report said on Wednesday. But the abuse inflicted on suspects by Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge -- who has since been fired, lives in Florida and receives a full pension -- and detectives under his command occurred too long ago to pursue criminally, a four-year investigation concluded. "We have concluded...

By Patricia Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - Women and girls trafficked for forced sexual or domestic work suffer post-traumatic stress on a par with torture victims, researchers said on Wednesday. In one of the first studies of health problems of women who have been trafficked, they found 95 percent had been physically or sexually abused and nearly 40 percent had suicidal thoughts. "This research shows that women who have been trafficked into sex work emerge with very severe pain and injuries...

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations committee against torture told the United States on Friday it should close any secret prisons abroad and the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba, saying they violated international law. The 10 independent experts, who examined the U.S. record at home and abroad, also urged President George W. Bush's administration to "rescind any interrogation technique" that constituted torture or cruel treatment, citing use of dogs to terrify detainees. The United...

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations committee against torture told the United States on Friday it should close any secret prisons abroad and the Guantanamo Bay facility, saying they violated international law. The 10 independent experts, who examined the U.S. record at home and abroad, also urged the Bush Administration to "rescind any interrogation technique" that constituted torture or cruel treatment, citing use of dogs to induce detainees' fear. The United States "should ensure...

By Ben Blanchard BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police had a better rate of success at cracking murder cases last year than either the United States or Britain, officials said on Monday, strongly denying that forced confessions were behind the good results. Of the more than 30,000 murder cases in China in 2005, almost 90 percent were solved, and the number of people murdered per 100,000 of the population was only just over 2, far less than the 5.6 figure in the United States, police...