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  • Video Series: Dominic Wilkinson on Conscientious Objection in Healthcare

    Associate Professor and Consultant Neonatologist Dominic Wilkinson (Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics) argues that medical doctors should not always listen to their own conscience and that often they should do what the patient requests, even when this conflicts with their own values.

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  • Crosspost: Bring back the dead

    A version of this post was originally published at The Conversation. A trial to see if it is possible to regenerate brains in patients that have been declared clinically dead has been approved. Reanima Advanced Biosciences aims at using stem cells, injections of peptides, and nerve stimulation to cause regeneration in brain dead patients. The

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  • Event: St Cross Special Ethics Seminar: The role of therapeutic optimism in recruitment to a clinical trial: an empirical study, presented by Dr Nina Hallowell

    On Thursday 12 May 2016, Dr Nina Hallowell delivered the first St Cross Special Ethics Seminar of Trinity Term.  The talk is available to listen to here http://media.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/uehiro/TT16_STX_Hallowell.mp3 Title:  The role of therapeutic optimism in recruitment to a clinical trial: an empirical study

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  • Is the Zika panic over? Ethics of diagnosis and misdiagnosis

    By Dominic Wilkinson @Neonatalethics  and Keyur Doolabh, Medical Student, Monash University Towards the end of last year, and over the first months of 2016, there were alarming reports of the explosive spread of Zika virus infection in South America. As many as 1.5m Brazilians were thought to have contracted the virus. More, worrying still, there

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  • Cross Post: How psychology can help us solve climate change

    Written by   Rachel New, researcher University of Oxford, and  Nadira Faber, Research Fellow University of Oxford. This article was originally published by The Conversation   Time to cooperate. Hands by Shutterstock   The Paris agreement on climate change calls for a global responsibility to cooperate. As we are often reminded, we urgently and drastically need to

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  • Cross Post: Want to be popular? You’d better follow some simple moral rules

    This article was originally published by The Conversation Written by Jim A.C. Everett, PhD Candidate, University of Oxford  and Molly Crockett, Associate Professor of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford Imagine that an out of control trolley is speeding towards a group of five people. You are standing on a footbridge above, next to a large man. If you push him

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  • Whose lifestyle benefits? Regulatory risk-benefit assessment of enhancement devices

    Nearly everyone would agree that a device or drug that relieves pain, or alleviates symptoms of depression confers a benefit – plausibly, a substantial benefit – on its user. No matter what your goals are, no matter what you enjoy, you are likely to agree that your life will go better if you are not

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  • Private education: in defence of hypocrisy

    (Photo: Daily Telegraph) I am a bitter opponent of private education. All my political hackles rise whenever the subject is mentioned. Yet of my four currently school-aged children, one (‘A’) is educated privately (at a specialist choir school), and another (‘B’, who is dyslexic) will shortly be in private education (at a hip, Indian-cotton swathed,

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  • Guest Post: Abortion, punishment and moral consistency

    Written by: Rajiv Shah, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge Donald Trump suggested that women who have abortions should face punishment. For that he was criticised by both the pro-choice side and the pro-life side. The latter claimed that their view is that women should not face punishment for having abortions but that only providers should.

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  • The Panama Papers: How much financial privacy should the super rich be allowed to enjoy?

    The Panama Papers comprise a leak of 11.5 million files from Mossack Fonseca, the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm. The leak has tainted the reputations of many celebrities, and some public officials have been forced to resign, including Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsoon, and Spanish Industry Minister José Manuel Soria. Ramón Fonseca, Director

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