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Solving the Organ Crisis Ethically
Julian Savulescu and William Isdale An editorial in the Lancet earlier this month report on the first fall in UK organ transplants in a decade. Key statistics included that “the number of people who chose or were able to donate their organs in 2014 fell, and that 224 fewer people in the UK received an organ transplant…
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Guest Post: ‘I don’t want to die, but I am too scared to be anything different’: The role of identity in mental illness
Anke Snoek Macquarie University If you break a leg or have a cold, it probably wouldn’t affect your identity at all. But when you have an invasive, chronic illness, it will probably change your way of being in the world, and the way you perceive yourself. Our body is the vehicle with which we interact…
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Guest Post: Agree to disagree? Why not?
Pedro Jesus Perez Zafrilla. (University of Valencia) In a previous post on this blog, David Aldridge questions the social convention of ending arguments by “agreeing to disagree.”, arguing that doing so “ends the dialogue at precisely the point where what is really at issue is beginning to emerge” . He also questions the motivations of…
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Doping in Hollywood
For his role in the new movie Southpaw, Jake Gyllenhaal gained 45 lbs (20 kgs) of muscle in six months. Many praised Gyllenhall for his dedication in undergoing this remarkable physical transformation. Few have questioned whether this achievement was aided by the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). Some in the bodybuilding community claim that…
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Pinker Bioethics: What Should We Learn?
Julian Savulescu Twitter @juliansavulescu Steven Pinker has recently written an op-ed questioning the contribution of bioethics to the safe and efficient regulation of research. This has been widely misinterpreted and criticised, though Alice Dreger has written a recent accurate blog in support of Pinker. Pinker provocatively said that bioethics should get out of the way…
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Left, Right, and Belief Formation.
A recent article by Jeff Sparrow on the Australian writer Helen Dale/Darville/Demidenko has left me pondering the way that we form beliefs. Under the penname ‘Helen Demidenko’, Dale published a novel that told the story of a Ukrainian family, members of whom were perpetrators of crimes against Jews during the Holocaust. The novel was instantly…
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Guest Post: The Moral Imperative for Bioethics
By Daniel K. Sokol Daniel Sokol, PhD, is a bioethicist and lawyer at 12 King’s Bench Walk, London. He has sat on several ethics committees, including the UK’s Ministry of Defence’s Research Ethics Committee. In a recent Opinion piece in the Boston Globe, Professor Steven Pinker made the surprising suggestion that the primary moral goal…
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Guest Post: Caring for Our Home
Darlei Dall’Agnol Professor of Ethics, Federal University of Santa Catarina. Many nations are already preparing for the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference to be held in Paris in December. One of the main goals of the Conference is to reach an agreement on climate change, especially on greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit the…
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ASMR and Absurdity
by Hannah Maslen and Rebecca Roache In the past five years or so, a new phenomenon has emerged on the internet. ASMR videos allow you to spend around 40 minutes watching someone carefully unpack and repack a box, or listen to a detailed demonstration of ten different notebooks, or observe the careful folding of several…
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Stripping Addicts of Benefits – Coercion, Consent, and the Right to Benefits
The UK government has announced plans to review the possibility of stripping drug addicts, alcoholics and obese individuals of benefits if they refuse treatment for their conditions. In support of the review, a consultation paper claims that the review is intended to “. . . consider how best to support those suffering from long-term yet…