On his blog in The Independent, John Rentoul has a long-running feature called “Questions to which the Answer is No“. In it, he examines the kind of screaming rhetorical-question headline much beloved of certain middle-market tabloids: “Is this photographic evidence of Nessie?”, “Does coffee cure cancer?”, “Does coffee cause cancer?”, “Does MMR bring down house prices?“* and […]
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Revised CfP: 9th International Conference on Clinical Ethics Consultation
The deadline for submissions to this conference has been extended to that 15th October. Further details here. […]
CFP: “Neurotechnological Interventions: Therapy or Enhancement”
Submissions (of 300 words max) are invited for inclusion at the TILT authors’ workshop on the theme of “Neurotechnological Interventions: Therapy or Enhancement” in Tilburg on 15-16th November 2012. The workshop is part of the FP 7 RoboLaw project, and will lead to the publication of a volume with papers. Abstracts shoud describe briefly how the […]
Stacey Swimme reports that: Ethicist Reports: Prostitution is Not Harmful
Stacey Swimme a political advocate for sex workers in the US has written a rather nice response piece to a paper recently published in the JME: Is prostitution harmful? You can read her response here: ethicist-reports-prostitution-is-not-harmful Hat Tip to Christian Munthe for picking up on this. […]
Philosophy, Bioethics and Otherworldliness
Hmmmm. So Brian L picked up on Catarina’s post that picked up on Brian E’s post that picked up on the ever-simmering stuff about male circumcision – and the American Academy of Pediatrics’ latest policy position in particular – with the comment “Philosophers are a bit unworldly, but this is still quite something”. I take the […]
How Not to Respond to the Nicklinson Verdict
Unsurprisingly, the ruling handed down last week in respect of Tony Nicklinson and “Martin” has generated a lot of comment. A lot of that comment has disagreed with the ruling. David Allen Green, the Staggers‘ legal correspondent and also known as the blogger Jack of Kent, tweeted that it was a “dreadful court decision… depriving […]
NIcklinson and “Martin” Lose their Cases
The ruling, and a summary, are available here. I wouldn’t want to say that I told you so… but I did. Twice. And I can’t help but to wonder if this case should ever have come to court. Sympathetic as I am to the moral arguments in favour of assisted dying, whether those arguments can be […]
Religious Preferences and the Best Interests of the Child
So the JME has – finally – published the paper by Brierley et al concerning withholding and withdrawal of futile treatment from children in the face of doctrinally-informed objections by the parents. It’s taken a while, but it’s there now. The essence of the paper’s claim is pretty simply put: if parental preferences run contrary to […]
Where do Kids fit in Kidnapping?
What with Seb Coe’s Sports Day dominating the news at the moment, it was only by chance that I noticed this story: Ann Pettway, convicted of kidnapping a 19-day-old child from a hospital 23 years ago, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison. Pettway’s defence team had suggested that the child, Carlina White, had been […]
More on Circumcision in Germany
Søren Holm sometimes jokes that, if you want your conference well-attended, you should have a paper on the ethics of circumcision. I don’t know how well-attended the recent IAB satellite on the topic was – the first half clashed with Peter Singer doing his thing, which can’t have helped it, and I couldn’t go to […]