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One Success in Research Ethics
Research ethics committees often behave unethically*. One example is their failure to understand the ethical basis for obtaining consent and the appropriate limitations. There is a simple rule – “get consent”. I discuss this in greater detail in Bioethics: Why Philosophy Is Essential to Progress, JME 40th Anniversary Issue. But ethics is more complicated than…
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The devil is real, and we all know him
It is Halloween, the day when the dead walk and the devil rides. We’re plagued by children who are risking diabetes, if not their immortal souls, by demanding the sort of sweets you only give to kids you hate. The Christians down the road, not realizing, as Luther did, that the devil can’t bear to…
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How Important Is Population Ethics?
We face very important decisions about climate change policy, healthcare prioritization, energy consumption, and global catastrophic risks. To what extent can the field of population ethics contribute to real-world decisions on issues like these? This is one of the central questions being pursued by researchers in the Population Ethics: Theory and Practice project at the Future of…
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Moral Enhancement Won’t Work For The Very Reason It Is Claimed To Be Desirable
Guest Post: Alexander Andersson, MA student in practical philosophy, University of Gothenburg Email: gusandall[at]student.gu.se In Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu argue that we, as a human race, are in deep trouble. According to the authors, global-warming, weapons of mass destruction, poverty, famine, terrorists, and even liberal…
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Equality and the Clinical Trial Dating Agency
The first advert for the sale of a clinical trial place offers, for $2 million, the chance to participate as a patient in a trial investigating the Farmington virus (FARV) and its potential efficacy in treating certain forms of brain tumours. Meanwhile, Alexander Masters has written convincingly about his idea for a clinical trial dating…
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Facebook and Apple – Increasing choice and control or creating biased solutions?
Reproductive technologies were in the headlines when Facebook and Apple announced they would offer female employees a $20,000 benefit to freeze their eggs. According to the report, this enables women to delay child bearing for different reasons and gives women more control. The announcement states that egg freezing is a pricey but increasingly popular option…
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Harsher sentences for murder of a police officer: what are the arguments?
The recent media coverage of the Parole Board’s decision to release Harry Roberts after serving his (minimum) murder sentence has reignited debate over how those convicted of killing a police officer should be punished. The fact that the people Roberts murdered were police officers seems to be of great significance in the outcry about his…
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Relaxed about dying?
“Now we must wait, wait. These hours…. The gurgling starts again — but how slowly a man dies! …By noon I am groping on the outer limits of reason. …every gasp lays my heart bare.” Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front In Remarque’s novel, the agony of the German soldier, witnessing the…
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The dappled causal world for psychiatric disorders: implications for psychiatric nosology
On Thursday 16th October, Professor Kenneth Kendler delivered his second (and final) Loebel Lecture, entitled ‘The dappled causal world for psychiatric disorders: implications for psychiatric nosology’. You can view it online here or listen here. Whilst Kendler’s first lecture – summarised by Roger Crisp here – focused on empirical issues, the second lecture was more philosophical. Kendler’s…