When Nadine Dorries MP was elected to the Commons Health Select Committee, eyebrows were raised. But, hey – she’s an ex-nurse, so perhaps she could be relied on to have at least some sort of insight into matters relating to health (even if she does think that a foetus is capable of reaching out of […]
Latest articles
Teaching, Application and Theory
Ben Saunders’ paper in this month’s JME dealing with how to teach applied ethics is thought-provoking. He picks up on an argument between Robin Lawlor and David Benatar that’s been rumbling on for yonks in the Journal‘s pages. Lawlor and Benatar are worried about how much theory to teach in applied ethics classes – Lawlor […]
How Important are Genetic Origins?
It’s something of a commonplace to suggest that genetics poses a number of problems both in and for bioethics as it’s traditionally done. One of the problems in bioethics is that there could well be times when giving genetic information to a person about himself based on a test that he’s had will mean, necessarily, […]
Conference: Paying for blood and organs is not so bad: A Debate
Allowing sales of gametes and body parts and offering incentives to increase provision have been some of the more controversial suggestions to narrow the gap between demand and supply. Drawing on Richard Titmuss’ work on blood, many have argued that financial incentives reduce supply by driving out altruistic donors as well as reducing the quality […]
Spineless in Saudi?
A little while ago, Richard Ashcroft alerted me to this story: a judge in Saudi Arabia was considering surgical paralysis as the sentence for a man who had caused a similar injury to someone else in a fight. The BBC’s story came via a report on Amnesty’s website, which you can find here. The story […]
COBRA Conference on Teaching Professional Ethics
Nathan Emmerich reviews the conference here. He’s also asked me to add a reminder about the conference on Social Scientific Approaches to Bioethics to be held in London in January. I posted the CFP here a little while ago, but the conference website is here. […]
Bless my cotton socks, I’m in the news…
Footage of the oral evidence given to the Scottish Parliamentary Committee investigating the End of Life Assistance Bill. Starring… um… me. […]
On Nailing one’s Colours to the Mast
“You’re a Kantian,” people in my department tell me. At least, I think that’s what they say – I’m assuming that there’s no comma before the final syllable, and that I’ve got all the vowels right. I don’t think I am, actually (a Kantian, that is – I couldn’t comment on the other option). I’m […]
Conf and CFP: 5th Postgraduate Bioethics Conference
Social Scientific Approaches to Bioethics: Methods and Methodologies 5-7 January 2011, Wellcome Conference Centre, Euston Road, London Post the empirical turn scholars at work in bioethics have been making continually greater use of social scientific approaches. One the one hand this can be seen as a fulfilment of the promise of bioethics as a truly […]
Videotape, Sex and Danger
Muireann Quigley has pointed me in the direction of this story, concerning the risks of HIV faced by those working in the porn industry. An Aids activist group has filed a workplace safety complaint against Larry Flynt, accusing the porn king of creating an unsafe environment for his stable of sex stars by not requiring they […]