Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation

Debate between Lord Harries of Pentregarth and Lord Ashton of Hyde

Wednesday 21st November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

I thank the Minister for the Statement and his responses. I am delighted that one of my successors as Bishop of Oxford has been appointed to the centre’s board. I know that with his experience and background he will make a very valuable contribution to it.

Is there an academic moral philosopher on the board? I ask as a former member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics and the HFEA. It was always thought valuable, particularly with the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, to have a philosopher or two on board. It is not that they will come up with a better answer than anybody else—their judgment is neither better nor worse than anybody else’s—but an academic philosopher can tease out unexamined assumptions. So many of these agreements and disagreements on ethics are about the assumptions that need to be teased out and looked at. I have not had a chance to look at the document yet, I am afraid, but perhaps I could ask that question.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I am glad to say that there will be. Professor Luciano Floridi is Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford—so another Oxford man.