With a history of childhood trauma, anxiety and other ailments, therapy had been a godsend for me. Luckily, I hit the jackpot with my very first therapist, Sheryl, and felt I really connected with someone for the first time. It all went well for a few years —until one day she suddenly announced she was about to retire.

I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under my feet. In a panic, I went therapist shopping, trying to find a replacement, but no other therapist seemed the right fit. It just didn’t feel right. They weren’t her. …

The universalisability test is a test of the sufficiency of the reasons for an action or choice that are encompassed in our maxims. Universalisation, according to Kant, is an act of the will and inherently implies that all human beings are recognised as ends in themselves and should be treated as such in all morally relevant situations. These stipulations constitute the Kantian meaning of the concept of universalisability and explain its crucial role in morality.

The reason why someone should be able to universalise their proposed maxim is that universalisability articulates a basic moral fact, namely, that the agent recognises…

Why diversify?

In the course of the past two years, the topic of diversification for freelance translators has become increasingly relevant and is not without controversy. Why should we need to diversify if freelance translation is a viable business model (which I believe that it is)? Isn’t diversification just for those who are unable to succeed with their translation business and struggling to make ends meet?

When I carried out a survey among 250 freelance translators in July 2013 as part of the research for my book Diversification in the Language Industry, some very interesting results came to light. Most notably that…

Intent and culpability

When examining whether someone can be held morally accountable for harmful actions they do to themselves, such as self-harm or suicide, we first of all need to examine their intent. When looking at suicide versus killing another person, for example, we can say that the person’s intent is always to kill someone and take a life, no matter whether this is their own life or someone else’s. This makes them morally culpable as they intend to kill. They can’t remove themselves from the equation, so a life is still lost, and it is irrelevant whether this is the person’s own…