Guest post by Dominic Wilkinson (Cross-posted from Practical Ethics) On the BBC’s Moral Maze this evening, the question of elective ventilation was discussed at some length. (For those who missed it, the programme is still available here). There were several striking features of that discussion, but one argument that stood out was the argument against […]
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Back from the Grave: Should we Allow Elective Ventilation?
Guest post by Dominic Wilkinson (Cross-posted from Practical Ethics) Mary is 62 years old. She is brought to hospital after she collapsed suddenly at home. Her neighbour found her unconscious, and called the ambulance. When they arrived she was deeply unconscious and at risk of choking on her own secretions. They put a breathing tube […]
Building for the Past
David Edmonds poses a question: Imagine three cities. 1. A medieval city (something like Oxford). 2. A city heavily bombed in World War II and completely rebuilt, with original materials etc. (e.g. the centre of Warsaw). 3. A city constructed in 2012 to look just like the medieval city (e.g. Poundbury the ‘traditional’ village Prince […]
Henrietta Lacks and “Enchanting Rhetoric”
Note: There’s a couple of errors of interpretation in this post. I’m not going to re-write it, because I wrote what I wrote, and it’s in the public domain, and I don’t think it’s all that dignified to pretend that one never makes blunders; it’s better to acknowledge them, take the hit, and move on. […]
CfP: Criminalizing Contagion: Ethical, legal and clinical challenges of prosecuting the spread of disease and sexually transmitted infections
The BMJ Group journals Sexually Transmitted Infections and Journal of Medical Ethics, in conjunction with academics at the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy (University of Manchester) and the Health Ethics and Law Network (University of Southampton), would like to publish a collection of articles on the criminalization of disease and sexually transmitted infections. We invite article […]
Nothing to lose? Killing is disabling
Guest post by Dominic Wilkinson (Cross-posted from Practical Ethics) In a provocative article forthcoming in the Journal of Medical Ethics (one of a new series of feature articles in the journal) philosophers Walter Sinnott Armstrong and Franklin Miller ask ‘what makes killing wrong?’ Their simple and intuitively appealing answer is that killing is wrong because […]
Calling Charlton Heston…
It’s been a while since the last post, and there’s a couple of serious entries on the way – but they’ve been displaced by a bit of silliness from Oklahoma. State Senator Ralph Shortey (or SHortey, if you follow his Facebook style) has introduced a Bill demanding that [n]o person or entity shall manufacture or […]
Nootropic Drugs in the Professions
Across at NewAPPS, Eric Schliesser wonders aloud about how common nootropic drug use is in professional philosophy. (Nootropics are are “drugs, supplements, nutraceuticals, and functional foods that improve mental functions such as cognition, memory, intelligence, motivation, attention, and concentration” – Wikipedia.) And, quite rightly, some of the commentators have pointed out that it’s fairly common. Actually, it’s more […]
Suffering and the Human Condition
I’m currently working my way through the recently-released report by the Commission on Assisted Dying – it’s a long and appropriately life-sapping document, but a number of commentators has been quicker than I to get through it. Douglas Noble, writing at the BMJ blog, isn’t impressed. Based on what I’ve read so far, I’m tempted […]
A Little Something for the Holiday…
Here’s a little holiday challenge for you: come up with a bioethical controversy that some dark part of your soul wants to be real, if only because (a) you can get a paper out of it, and (b) it’ll cause heart attacks among the sort of people who make a point of listening to The […]