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Doug McConnell’s Posts

The Moral Elephant in the Room – Patient Morality in Psychiatry

Cross-post from the Journal of Medical Ethics Blog.

 

By Doug McConnell, Matthew Broome, and Julian Savulescu.

In our paper, “Making psychiatry moral again”, we aim to develop and justify a practical ethical guide for psychiatric involvement in patient moral growth. Ultimately we land on the view that psychiatrists should help patients express their own moral values by default but move to address the content of those moral values in the small subset of cases where the patient’s moral views are sufficiently inaccurate or underdeveloped.

Those who are interested in how we got that position can see our argument in the paper but here we’ll say something about what motivated us to write this paper.Read More »The Moral Elephant in the Room – Patient Morality in Psychiatry

The Morality of Sending Asylum Seekers to Rwanda

Written by Doug McConnell

The government has recently claimed that their policy to send asylum seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda as part of the UK-Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership is “completely moral” and responds to an “urgent moral imperative”. The justification for these claims is that the policy will act as a “very considerable deterrent” to asylum seekers and break the business model of people smugglers who put asylum seekers at risk of drowning in the English Channel. Needless to say, these claims about the morality of the Rwanda policy are highly contested. Here, I assess whether they stand up to even the most charitable assessment.Read More »The Morality of Sending Asylum Seekers to Rwanda

The Right To Tweet

By Doug McConnell

On January 6th, 2021 Trump was locked out his Twitter account for 12 hours after describing the people who stormed the US Capitol as “patriots”. A few days later, his account was permanently suspended after further tweets that Twitter judged to risk “further incitement of violence” given the socio-political context at the time. Elon Musk has recently claimed that, if his deal goes through to take control of Twitter, he would reverse the decision to ban Trump because it was “morally bad and foolish in the extreme”.

Here, I argue that the original suspension of Trump’s account was justified but not its permanence. So I agree with Musk, in part. I suggest a modified system of suspension to deal with rule breakers according to which Trump’s access should be reinstated.Read More »The Right To Tweet

Parliament Psychedelic

Written by Doug McConnell

Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, and Liz Truss are on psychedelics at the Palace of Westminster. This isn’t the work of Russian spies who have dusted off the KGB playbook or yet another Downing Street party but, rather, a near-future professional development program for politicians.

The path to this near-future scenario has two steps. First, let us suppose that psychedelics make good on their early promise as moral bioenhancers. Second, once effective moral enhancements exist, then people whose jobs entail making morally momentous decisions, such as politicians, would be morally required to take those enhancements.Read More »Parliament Psychedelic

Philosophical Fiddling While the World Burns: Second Movement

Written by Doug McConnell

Most ethicists would agree that the climate emergency is one of the most serious ethical problems society has ever faced, yet the focus of most of our work is elsewhere. In his piece, “Philosophical Fiddling While the World Burns”, Charles Foster suggests that business as usual for ethicists – “fine ethical tuning” and making “subtle distinctions” – amounts to shuffling the deck chairs when we know the ship is heading for an iceberg. Here I argue that, frustratingly, most ethicists qua ethicists have a limited role in responding to the climate emergency. However, this doesn’t mean we should despair but, rather, that we should also contribute to addressing the climate emergency outside the ivory tower qua citizens.Read More »Philosophical Fiddling While the World Burns: Second Movement

Is a Publication Boycott of Chinese Science a Justifiable Response to Human Rights Violations Perpetrated by Chinese Doctors and Scientists?

By Doug McConnell

Recently the editor-in-chief of the Annals of Human Genetics, Prof David Curtis, resigned from his position, in part, because the journal’s publisher, Wiley, refused to publish a letter he co-authored with Thomas Schulze, Yves Moreau, and Thomas Wenzel. In that letter, they argue in favour of a boycott on Chinese medical and scientific publications as a response to the serious human rights violations happening in China. Several other leading journals, the Lancet, the BMJ and JAMA have also refused to publish the letter claiming that a boycott against China would be unfair and counterproductive.

This raises two separate ethical issues: 1. Should journals refuse to publish a letter arguing in favour of a boycott on Chinese medical and scientific publications? 2. Should journals actually establish a boycott on Chinese medical and scientific publications?Read More »Is a Publication Boycott of Chinese Science a Justifiable Response to Human Rights Violations Perpetrated by Chinese Doctors and Scientists?

A Juror’s Guide to Going Rogue

Written by Doug McConnell

A jury recently acquitted several activists charged with causing £25,000 worth of damage to Shell’s HQ in London despite the defendants admitting that they caused the damage and the judge informing the jury that the defendants had no legal defence. In other words, if the law were applied correctly, the jury had no choice but to find them guilty. When juries deviate from the law and “go rogue” like this, it is known as “nullification”. But when, if ever, should juries behave in this way?Read More »A Juror’s Guide to Going Rogue

Ethics of the GameStop Short Squeeze

By Doug McConnell

Recently a large, loosely coordinated group of individual ‘retail investors’ have been buying up stocks that certain hedge funds had bet against (i.e. ‘shorted’). In doing so, the retail investors have driven up the price of those stocks. This has caused hedge funds that shorted the stock to lose billions of dollars and enabled a number of retail investors to get rich in the process. The phenomenon is anthropologically interesting because it is symbolic of a shift in power away from the traditional Wall Street players towards less wealthy, less well-connected individuals. But what are the ethics of this? Did Average Joe Trader just bring a measure of justice to Wall Street? Or did the mob unethically manipulate the market? If they did, are their actions any more unethical than the usual behaviour of institutional investors?Read More »Ethics of the GameStop Short Squeeze

Dementia, Pagal, or Neurocognitive Disorder: What Is In a Name?

By Doug McConnell

 

A recent BBC news story has drawn attention to the fact that there isn’t a word for “dementia” in many South Asian languages and some South Asian people living in the UK still use the stigmatising Punjabi word “pagal”, meaning “crazy” or “mad”. The news story implicitly assumes that the word “dementia” is non-stigmatising but this is disputed. If the word “dementia” is itself stigmatizing, are anglophones really in a position to criticize other languages? Can we adopt a non-stigmatising word for dementia?Read More »Dementia, Pagal, or Neurocognitive Disorder: What Is In a Name?

Pandemic Ethics: Key Workers Have a Stronger Claim to Compensation and Hazard Pay for Working During The COVID-19 Pandemic Than The Armed Forces Do When on Deployment

By Doug McConnell and Dominic Wilkinson

Post originally appeared on the Journal of Medical Ethics Blog

 

While the general public enjoy the relative safety of social distancing, key workers are at a higher risk of both contracting COVID-19 and transmitting it to their families. This is especially the case for ‘frontline’ workers who are frequently exposed to the virus and may not have access to adequate personal protective equipment (PPE). Tragically, many key workers have died of COVID-19 around the world already, including over 100 in the UK.

Although it is relatively rare for key workers to die from COVID-19, the risk of death is obviously much greater than one would usually expect in these roles and key workers clearly have good reason to be anxious. For ‘frontline’ workers, the distress is compounded by working in harrowing conditions where so many are dying alone. Furthermore, frontline workers have to take on the burdens of ensuring they do not transmit infections to their families, by moving in with patients, living in hotels, or maintaining rigorous social distancing in their own homes.

These atypical costs, risks, and burdens suggest that key workers are owed compensation in addition to their usual pay and a few instances of nationally coordinated applause. Read More »Pandemic Ethics: Key Workers Have a Stronger Claim to Compensation and Hazard Pay for Working During The COVID-19 Pandemic Than The Armed Forces Do When on Deployment