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What has Facebook (with some psychologists) done?
In my academic and musty corner of the universe, there has been a lot of talk in the past few days about this publication in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers tweaked a Facebook algorithm such that Facebook users would see a higher proportion of posts with negative or positive emotional…
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JPE 2(1) – The pursuit of sex equality keeps going off the rails
So claims renowned Oxford philosopher and feminist Janet Radcliffe Richards. Professor Radcliffe Richards is the author of The Sceptical Feminist, Human Nature After Darwin and Careless Thought Costs Lives: the ethics of transplants. She was also listed recently as one of the world’s 50 most important thinkers by Prospect magazine. Writing in the Journal of…
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Horizon 2020 and The Role of Lay People’s Perspectives in Bioethical Reasoning
By Kimberly Schelle & Nadira Faulmüller Horizon 2020, the European Union’s 2014-2020 largest research programme ever, includes the call to pursue ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’ (RRI). RRI stands for a research and innovation process in which all societal actors (e.g. citizens, policy makers, business and researchers) are working together in the process to align the…
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Drinking alcohol or using drugs during pregnancy could become a crime
Recently a neuroscientist discovered he was a psychopath. He was studying the brain scans of psychopaths, and intended to use some brain scans of family members and one of himself for the control group. Now one of the brain scans from the control group show clear signs of psychopathy, so he thought he must have…
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Taking Rape Allegations Seriously: How Should We Treat the Accused?
Last week, the Crown Prosecution Service announced that it would not pursue further action against Oxford Union president Ben Sullivan, due to insufficient evidence arising from an investigation into the two accusations of rape and attempted rape made against him. In early May, Sullivan was arrested and released on bail, prompting a chaotic six-week period…
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Do Not Attempt Resuscitation orders: should you discuss with the patient?
The Court of Appeal has stated that a statement in a capacitous patient’s medical notes that resuscitation should not be attempted (a ‘Do Not Attempt Resuscitation’ Order – DNAR), should usually only be inserted after consultation with the patient: see R (Tracey) v Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and others [2014] EWCA Civ 822…
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Should Vegetarians Consider Eating Insects?
In the last few years, there has been a push from various bodies—including the UN—to get Western countries to adopt eating insects as an alternative to meat. Insects have been hailed as a type of super food. They are: rich in protein; environmentally friendly to harvest; sustainable; and, they’re already eaten, and enjoyed, in many…
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Destroying one ecosystem and constructing another: biodiversity offsetting and particular value
Suppose that the government is proposing a new policy regarding buildings of historical significance. Rather than simply banning the destruction of ‘listed’ buildings, the new policy would allow their destruction, provided that whoever destroys the building agrees to construct, somewhere nearby, a new building of a similar size, in a similar style, exhibiting a similar…
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The importance of “follow up” in research ethics
Over on the Ethox blog, Ignacio Mastroleo writes about the Nuremberg code and post-trial obligations of researchers My intention in this post is to highlight that relevance of the term “follow up” in research ethics, in particular, what has been called post-trial ethics of human health research (Sofaer and Strech 2011, NRES 2012). If my…
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Howick on What Counts as a Placebo
The use of placebos in medicine raises a large number of serious ethical issues. Do they involve deceiving patients, or violating their autonomy in some way? Are they harmful to certain patients, in research trials where the actual treatment being trialled is thought likely to be successful? Can placebos – if medically warranted – be…