You’re all probably way ahead of me on this, but there’s a series called The Philosopher’s Arms currently enjoying a run on Radio 4. The premise of the programme is that philosophical questions are discussed in the context of a conversation in the pub – which has, of course, been the traditional haunt of philosophers […]
Latest articles
Is health promotion aimed at the wrong target?
By David Hunter I recently enjoyed this article by Ben Goldacre in the Guardian on vitamin pills and risk compensation – basically arguing that placebos are not harmless, because if we feel we have improved our health then we may take more risks in other areas. […]
Blogging hiatus
Bit quiet around here, isn’t it? Don’t worry (just in case you were): we’ve not gone away; real life has made a temporary intrusion, and I think the same is true for David. We’ll be back soon. […]
Assisted Suicide and the Courts: Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
“Martin”‘s story has been generating a reasonable amount of media and blog attention over the lat few days. (Udo Schuklenk considers some of the Telegraph‘s coverage, for example, and finds it severely wanting.) Paralysed after a stroke, “Martin” wants help to end his life; but his wife doesn’t want to be the one to help […]
Reiki Research: Not Quite the Maddest thing on the Net.
Right now, physicists are pondering the fallout from the collision of high-energy particles. (Probably.) And I, for my part, am pondering the fallout from the collision of high-energy nonsense. Having had this brought to my attention, I’m led fairly quickly to this, then this, and, finally, this Mail on Sunday piece. All the links refer to […]
Fighting Fire with a Different Kind of Fire?
How much would I love to have been on the ethics committee that was faced with this? Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania were interested in a method of treatment for leukaemia that made use of modified versions of white blood cells. Cells were taken from leukaemia patients and genetically modified in two ways: first, they […]
Book Review: John Gray, “The Immortalization Commission”
London: Allen Lane, 2011; 276 + xii pp If some people are to be believed – not least certain former JME editors – saving lives is a duty that doesn’t stop with children drowning in ponds: it extends to there being a moral obligation to pursue scientific research so that death can be actively avoided […]
Assisted Dying: Physicians and Metaphysicians in the BMJ
There’s a slightly curious correspondence taking place in the BMJ at the moment that concerns assisted dying. Des Spence started things moving with this short piece. For the most part it is (sorry to say) a slightly pedestrian and simplistic overview of the state of the assisted dying debate. One of the arguments against AD that […]
Genetic Modification and Comparative Advantage (aka Musing about Kant 3)
David Jensen’s paper in the latest JME considers a possible Kantian argument against the use of genetic enhancement for the sake of comparative advantage in one’s children. Essentially, the argument rests on the idea that the maxim describing such a course of action would not be universalisable; universalised, it would be self-defeating, since the very […]
Conscientious Objection and What Makes a Medic
Francesca Minerva has drawn my attention to this paper by Sophie Strickland, currently available as a pre-publication download via the JME homepage, concerning conscientious objection among UK medical students. Students were invited to respond to a set of questions in an online poll to determine whether there were procedures to which they’d object, and in which […]