Philosophy Commons^™

Legal Personhood For Artificial Intelligence, Tyler Jaynes

Tyler Jaynes

Abortion And Animal Rights: Does Either Topic Lead To The Other?, Nathan M. Nobis

Nathan M. Nobis, PhD

A Response To Peter Singer: The Logic Of Effective Altruism, András Miklós

András Miklós

The Bad Habit Of Bearing Children, H Theixos

H Theixos

Procreation – the act of having and raising biological children – is generally not a life choice that is subject to moral scrutiny. In this paper the authors argue that decisions to procreate are morally evaluable, and that such evaluation reveals that prospective parents have a defeasible obligation to prioritize adoption over procreation. The obligation is defeated by the lack of desire to become a parent, and also in certain cases where legal are logistically onerous. We conclude that for those prospective parents who are unaffected by the defeasibility conditions have a duty to prioritize adoption, regardless of the strength, …

Researchers’ Perceptions Of Ethical Challenges In Cluster Randomized Trials: A Qualitative Analysis, Andrew Mcrae, Carol Bennett, Judith Belle Brown, Charles Weijer, Robert Boruch, Jamie Brehaut, Shazia Chaudhry, Allan Donner, Martin Eccles, Jeremy Grimshaw, Merrick Zwarenstein, Monica Taljaard

Charles Weijer

Background

Cluster randomized trials (CRTs) pose ethical challenges for investigators and ethics committees. This study describes the views and experiences of CRT researchers with respect to: (1) ethical challenges in CRTs; (2) the ethics review process for CRTs; and (3) the need for comprehensive ethics guidelines for CRTs.

Methods

Descriptive qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with a purposive sample of 20 experienced CRT researchers.

Results

Informants expressed concern over the potential for bias that may result from requirements to obtain informed consent from research participants in CRTs. Informants suggested that the need for informed consent ought to be related to …

Bioethics In Canada, Charles Weijer, Anthony Skelton, Samantha Brennan

Samantha Brennan

This comprehensive introduction to bioethical issues emphasizes Canadian policies, issues, and scholars. Using the human lifespan as an organizing narrative, Bioethics in Canada explores ethical theories through a diverse selection of readings discussing traditional and cutting-edge topics in the field.

Readership : Bioethics in Canada is a core text for bioethics courses, generally offered in second- or third-year through philosophy departments at Canadian universities.

http://www.oupcanada.com/catalog/9780195440157.html

Adult Children And Eldercare: The Moral Considerations Of Filial Obligations, H Theixos

H Theixos

This essay investigates the demands on adult children to provide care for their elderly/ill parents from a socio-moral perspective. In order to narrow the examination, the question pursued here is agent-relative: What social and moral complexities are involved for the adult child when their parent(s) need care? First, this article examines our society’s expectation that adult children are morally obligated to provide care for their parents. Second, the essay articulates how transgressing against this normative expectation can inure significant moral criticism. The final sections present these tensions within the context of disability.

Ethical Issues Posed By Cluster Randomized Trials In Health Research, Charles Weijer, Jeremy Grimshaw, Monica Taljaard, Ariella Binik, Robert Boruch, Jamie Brehaut, Allan Donner, Martin Eccles, Antonio Gallo, Andrew Mcrae, Raphael Saginur, Merrick Zwarenstein

Charles Weijer

The cluster randomized trial (CRT) is used increasingly in knowledge translation research, quality improvement research, community based intervention studies, public health research, and research in developing countries. However, cluster trials raise difficult ethical issues that challenge researchers, research ethics committees, regulators, and sponsors as they seek to fulfill responsibly their respective roles. Our project will provide a systematic analysis of the ethics of cluster trials. Here we have outlined a series of six areas of inquiry that must be addressed if the cluster trial is to be set on a firm ethical foundation: 1. Who is a research subject? 2. …

Oncofertility And The Boundaries Of Moral Reflection, Paul Lauritzen, Andrea Vicini S.J.

Paul Lauritzen

Advances in medical technology provide regular opportunities to explore theological reflection and magisterial teaching at the border of science and conscience. This article reflects on one such advance involving fertility preservation for cancer patients. The authors argue that ovarian tissue transplantation (OTT) poses intriguing questions for Catholic teaching and theologians about reproductive technology.

Thinking Like A Mountain: Nature, Wilderness, And The Virtue Of Humility, Paul Lauritzen

Paul Lauritzen

No abstract provided.

Deciphering Dignity, Leslie Meltzer Henry

Leslie Meltzer Henry

This commentary draws on dignity’s usage in law, ethics, and public policy to contemplate a narrow question about what the concept of dignity means in debates about human enhancement technologies. In particular, it considers arguments made by Fabrice Jotterand and other bioethicists who aim to repudiate the transhumanist claim that individuals can enhance their dignity through technological modification. The trouble with the positions on both sides of this debate is that it is extremely difficult to make normative comparisons about human and post-human dignity without first infusing dignity with particular metaphysical assumptions. To that end, the commentary offers a brief …

Conceptual Problems In Research Ethics, Charles Weijer

Charles Weijer

This poster addresses these issues:
• What good is medical research?
• What is owed to the study subject?
• When is research risk acceptable?
• How should we conduct research in developing countries?
• How should we conduct research involving communities?

Ethical Considerations In The Conduct Of Vaccine Trials In Developing Countries, Charles Weijer, C. Lanata, C. Plowe

Charles Weijer

No abstract provided.

Ethical Challenges In Icu Research, Charles Weijer

Charles Weijer

No abstract provided.

When Can Physicians Say “No” To Families And Patients?, Charles Weijer

Charles Weijer

No abstract provided.

Public Health And The Rights Of States, András Miklós

Andras Miklos

When exercising their public health powers, states claim various rights against their subjects and aliens. The paper considers whether public health considerations can help justify some of these rights, and explores some constraints on the justificatory force of public health considerations. I outline two arguments about the moral grounds for states’ rights with regard to public health. The principle of fairness emphasizes that those who benefit from public health measures ought to contribute their fair share in upholding them. Alternatively, states’ rights might be justified by a natural duty of justice to uphold and not to obstruct institutions implementing public …

Helsinki Discords: Fda, Ethics, And International Drug Trials, Jonathan Kimmelman, Charles Weijer, Eric Meslin

Charles Weijer

No abstract provided.

The Ethical Phenomenon Of Gm-Corn: Anger, Anxiety, And Arrogance In Crossing American Borders, Jules Simon

Jules Simon

In terms of phenomenology, I often wonder about the relevance of what I do as a philosopher for the life of those with whom I come into contact. This ‘coming into contact’ happens for me on several levels: as one human among many, as a husband and father and son and brother, as a teacher, as a neighbor, and as country or city dweller. I remember with fondness those times in the late sultry summer months when, as a youth, I would drive with my father to this or that local farm-stand on some remote back road in the hills …

Ethics And Schizophrenia, A. Rudnick, Charles Weijer

Charles Weijer

No abstract provided.

U.S. Federal Regulations For Emergency Research: A Practical Guide And Commentary, Andrew Mcrae, Charles Weijer

Charles Weijer

Emergency medicine research requires the enrollment of subjects with varying decision-making capacities, including capable adults, adults incapacitated by illness or injury, and children. These different categories of subjects are protected by multiple federal regulations. These include the federal Common Rule, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) regulations for pediatric research, and the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Final Rule for the Exception from the Requirements of Informed Consent in Emergency Situations. Investigators should be familiar with the relevant federal research regulations to optimally protect vulnerable research subjects, and to facilitate the institutional review board (IRB) review process. IRB …

Infertility And Moral Luck: The Politics Of Women Blaming Themselves For Infertility, Julie E. Ponesse

Julie E Ponesse

Infertility can be an agonizing experience, especially for women. And, much of the agony has to do with luck: with how unlucky one is in being infertile, and in how much luck is involved in determining whether one can weather the storm of infertility and perhaps have a child in the end. We argue that bad luck associated with being infertile is often bad moral luck for women. The infertile woman often blames herself or is blamed by others for what is happening to her, even when she cannot control or prevent what is happening to her. She has simply …

Afflicting The Comfortable: An Assessment Of The Stasis In International Bioethical Discourse, Sam Grey

Sam Grey

Despite decades of clinical research being carried out in the 'developing' world, neither the socio-political and economic context of the global South, nor the nature and historical trajectory of global inequality have played a substantive role in determining the nature and extent of North-to-South bioethical obligations. Instead, context has been used to vacate obligation, shut out theories of justice, and collapse the “four principles' of bioethics” – sacrosanct in the 'developed’ world - into a singular, non-negotiable focus on autonomy as a procedurally-defined right. Proponents of a minimum-standards system of international clinical research conflate scientific, statistical, economic, and ethical issues, …

Assisted Suicide: An Interest Not A Right., Eric G. Roscoe

Eric G. Roscoe

This paper examines the right to privacy and its role in recent debate over the rights of terminally ill patients to receive assistance in dying. It examines the history of suicide from John Donne up to the recent Supreme Court decisions in Washington v. Glucksberg. The Court came to the proper conclusion in Glucksberg by leaving the decisions up to state legislatures because the right itself does not reach the level of a fundamentally protected right to privacy. However, in some states it does reach the level of a state created liberty interest, and in those states a legitimate argument …

Politics, Risk, And Community In The Maya Icbg Case, Fern Brunger, Charles Weijer

Charles Weijer

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Benefits And Harms In Clinical Research, Paul Miller, Charles Weijer

Charles Weijer

No abstract provided.

Revisiting The Ethics Of Hiv Prevention Research In Developing Countries, Charles Weijer, Guy Leblanc

Charles Weijer

Issues: We present key aspects of our paper, commissioned by UNAIDS in 2005, entitled, “Revisiting the ethics of HIV prevention research in developing countries.” In 2004 and 2005 we witnessed the closure or suspension of three international clinical trials testing tenofovir in the prevention of HIV infection in high risk groups due to the failure to provide free treatment to those who seroconvert during the conduct of the study. We examine critically moral claims for the provision of treatment to those who seroconvert in HIV prevention trials and ask whether it is a matter of moral obligation or moral negotiation? …

What Does Vulnerability Mean?, Barry Hoffmaster

C. Barry Hoffmaster

No abstract provided.

Protecting Communities In Research: From A New Principle To Rational Protections, Ezekiel Emanuel, Charles Weijer

Charles Weijer

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Risks Of Non-Therapeutic Research In Children, Paul Miller, Charles Weijer

Charles Weijer

No abstract provided.

A Critical History Of Individual And Collective Ethics In The Lineage Of Lellouch And Schwartz, Charles Heilig, Charles Weijer

Charles Weijer

The notions of individual and collective ethics were first explicitly defined in the biostatistical literature in 1971 to motivate a mathematical solution to a posed ethical dilemma. This paper reviews key antecedents to these concepts and traces explicit references to them over time, primarily in the biostatistical literature. Following a historical exposition of these texts, a critical thematic analysis shows the following: the normative force of these concepts has not been adequately argued. Individual and collective ethics do not solve the problem of how to use accumulating data to inform ethical action. The notions of the "individual" and the "collective" …