Tauriq Moosa
Writer, Ethicist
Tauriq Moosa is a tutor in ethics, bioethics and critical thinking at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He is currently pursuing a Masters degree at the Centre for Applied Ethics, Stellenbosch University. He has published essays and articles on practical ethics, focusing on subjects like free expression, killing, sex, and religion in public life. He debated religion with Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the BBC documentary, the Tutu Talks, and has been featured on local radio shows. He is also an avid comic book writer and reader.
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Read more of Tauriq's essays and articles at tauriqmoosa.wordpress.com and 3quarksdaily.com
Hamilton Nolan, a Gawker writer I greatly respect but who I’ve disagreed with before, has a new post up regarding using Tweets publicly. I here want to respond to one […]
Animals behind cages, starving and dying, is an awful sight. It’s an image that underlines the callousness with which humans treat other creatures and indeed themselves. The philosopher, Immanuel Kant, […]
Joan Rivers called a baby ugly; Frankie Boyle once commented on Twitter that an Olympic swimmer looked like an aquatic mammal, due to the size of her nose. Most of […]
As study after study shows, women receive an enormous amount of abuse for any online activity: whether as journalists, sex writers, performers. Just being a woman (online) is sufficient to […]
There appears to be a bizarre stigma around people – especially women – who voluntarily decide not to procreate.
Recent examples from major media outlets targeting harmless individuals demonstrates a major ethical failing – as compassionate persons and responsible writers, commanding a platform. This doesn’t mean writers must never […]
Trial by social media has ruled that the accused be reprimanded swiftly in 140 characters, with lazy and possibly sexist swipes, threats and sentences probably worse than the initial Tweet itself.
Mandela’s legacy of a better world, with better people behaving in better ways is often nowhere better undermined than on “social” media. During the period where the world seemed to […]
Spoiler warning: To understand this review, you do need to have seen the film. To say this is a spoiler warning implies there is a story to be spoilt. There […]
So the new X-Men film trailer is out. It’s being Tweeted, Facebooked; it’s probably rising through the ranks of YouTube, Vimeo and so on. It’s easy content for sites, a blessing of […]
South Africa’s best satirical cartoonist, Jonathan Shapiro (AKA Zapiro), is in hot water for depicting the Hindu god Ganesh in a cartoon. As usual, those who worship said god are […]
Oprah Winfrey, the internationally famous talk-show host, media proprietor, philanthropist, recently declared that disbelief in god is incompatible with experiencing wonder. However, Winfrey’s unjustified view on atheism is only the […]
The nicest response to a critic who gives a product (particularly films, games, comics, etc.) a low score is fans’ insistence that the critic is wrong. Of course, many fans […]
The widely-read science news site, Popular Science, recently decided to remove comment sections almost completely – save for a minority of articles. Online content director, Susan Labarre, explains: “Comments can […]
We’ve all been there. The Internet comment section stares at us, blinking its sexy open space, inviting us to put words all over it, to tell the world why the […]
Cybersexism: Sex, gender and power on the Internet Laurie Penny Bloomsbury, 2013 (available from Amazon) Sexism – whether existing in meat- or cyberspace – is the noise people make who […]
This South African case raises many questions. An HIV-positive Aids counsellor, who was convicted of attempted murder for having unprotected sex with his unsuspecting girlfriend, has lost his appeal... (SAPA) […]
Background: I came across a remarkable story, from some years ago, where someone was rather upset with Canadian game developer Bioware for including an optional homosexual element in a, now […]
You no doubt have seen it often enough, perhaps said it yourself: It’s a variation on “Only a bad person would do that!” Yet, we must also wonder about what […]
Should things be banned because they destroy many lives? An initial response might be YES. But consider what we’re actually replying to by saying “YES”. We’re not saying we want […]
I didn’t want to write this, but then I don’t want to write most of the things I do: I shouldn’t need to tell anyone why thinking gay marriage will […]
Consider this individual: She has appeared on ABC’s “What Would you Do?” and is the ambassador for “Healing Hands for Haiti,” which aims to bring rehabilitation medicine to the country. […]
In 2013, an American prisoner fought for an execution: “for” not “against”. The question is whether we should have allowed him to commit suicide and/or receive help in doing so. In […]
I’ve written about sex work, incest, necrophilia, nonmonogamy, procreation, and other topics dealing with sex. This might give the impression I’m deeply concerned about sex and my need to have […]
Why should you only have sex with the person you are in a relationship with?
Many readers have often asked me why I care about celebrities and Bieber’s latest activity is a good illustration. Justin Bieber, the incredibly popular and famous teen pop idol, wrote […]
Witnessing, as we all did, the events of Boston made me turn to the news. This was a mistake. Turning to social media was even worse. A mismanagement of information, […]
Here is a statement that shouldn’t result in anyone being called racist: I think religion is a particularly harmful way of viewing the world, because it encourages irrational thought, groupthink, […]
I advocate and defend things many people consider controversial. But it should be noted: Supporting adults’ rights to take their own lives, cut their bodies, solicit sex workers, etc., is […]
Here’s what happened: “Gareth Jones, a well-regarded bioethicist at the University of Otago Bioethics Centre, published a piece in the New Zealand Medical Journal …The article… defends prenatal screening for […]