By Brian D. Earp (@briandavidearp) Readers of the JME Blog might be interested in this series of short videos in which I discuss some of the major ongoing problems with research ethics and publication integrity in science and medicine. How much of the published literature is trustworthy? Why is peer review such a poor quality control mechanism? How can we judge […]
Category: Navel-gazing
Free Labour and Quiet Doubts
Those of us on the academic side of things will almost certainly recognise the situation: you’re sitting in your school’s Teaching & Learning committee, or a staff/student committee meeting, or something like that, and you hear the complaint from students that they should get more contact time. Academics should spend more time teaching rather than […]
Galileo’s Middle Finger: Book Review
By David Hunter I recently finished reading Galileo’s Middle Finger by Alice Dreger a medical historian and ethicist (although she may deny the title) and since I found it both thought provoking, terrifying and inspiring I thought I would share a few thoughts and hopefully convince you to read it, since I think some of […]
Brocher Foundation – a review
By David Hunter For the last month I have been staying with 14 other academics on the shores of lake Geneva in Switzerland, free of charge thanks to the Brocher Foundation. I thought a review of the stay would potentially be of interest to others working in the field of medical ethics generally as it […]
How to be a good (consequentialist) bioethicist…
By David Hunter There has recently been a pattern of papers (and I am not going to identify which ones) which I take as being slightly embarrassing to academic bioethicists because they portray us in a less than flattering light because of the naive mistakes they seem to make, or the outlandish poorly argued claims […]
On Being a Hypocrite
A piece appeared in The Atlantic a few days ago that aims to prick the perceived bubble of professional ethicists. In fact, the headline is pretty hostile: THE HYPOCRISY OF PROFESSIONAL ETHICISTS. Blimey. The sub-headline doesn’t pull its punches either: “Even people who decide what’s right and wrong for a living don’t always behave well.” I […]
Questions to which the Answer is Yes
Over at Practical Ethics, Charles Camosy asks a question: Can bioethics be done without theology? Yep. It can. Well, that was quick and simple. But – oh, all right: I probably ought to say a bit more. Now, Camosy’s post is quite long, and that means that if I want to scrutinise it in any detail, […]
Paternalism up a Mountain
“Paternalism” is one of those words that has a hell of a lot of power. On several occasions, I’ve seen it used as a trump to shut down an argument: saying “But that’s paternalism” is, at least sometimes, treated as a way of showing that anyone arguing in favour of the allegedly paternalistic action is […]
Testing, testing…
So, yeah. It’s been a bit quiet here, hasn’t it? There’s been a range of reasons. Mainly, it’s had to do with David and I both having to do (whisper it) real w*rk, and that’s got in the way. And then WordPress went a bit odd, which made it impossible to post anything. (Part of the […]
Say twenty hail Autonomy’s and reflect on what you have done – bioethicists as having some, but not priestly authority.
By David Hunter Nathan Emmerich, occasional commentator here at the JME blog has recently published an interesting piece in the Guardian which argues against us taking bioethicists as having a particular type of expertise. While I enjoyed and agree with much of what he argues I do have a couple of quibbles – in particular […]