Health

DIY enhancement: morphological freedom or self-harm?

by Anders Sandberg
January 10, 2011January 11, 2011

by Anders Sandberg

Lepht Anonym is a DIY biohacker, extending her body and senses through implantation of home-made cybernetics in her own kitchen. (YouTube video of her lecture) Most of her work is about extending the sense of touch, using implanted magnets to acquire “magnetic vision” and (hopefully) an implanted version of the northpaw magnetic sense system besides the “usual stuff” of RFID implants.

She is critical of regular transhumanism, which she thinks is all talk. This is the real deal: “You just have to get deep enough to open a hole and put something in,” she says. “It’s that simple.” Of course, she has ended up in the hospital a few times. A new kind of self-harm all right-thinking people ought to save her from, or a valid form of self-expression that should be protected?
Read More »DIY enhancement: morphological freedom or self-harm?

Trading Organs for Freedom

by Michelle Hutchinson
January 1, 2011January 11, 2011

In Mississippi, sisters Jamie and Gladys Scott are to be let out of prison on the condition that Gladys donates a kidney to Jamie. (See also an article in the Guardian) They are both serving life sentences for being accessories to armed robbery, and would otherwise not be eligible for parole until 2014. Jamie Scott is severely ill with diabetes and high blood pressure, and requires frequent dialysis. She has been given parole on medical grounds, while Gladys has been granted parole on the condition that she give one of her kidneys to Jamie within a year. Receiving payment in exchange for organs is illegal in the US. But is there a relevant moral difference between trading one of your kidneys for money, and trading it for your freedom?

Cloudy with a Chance of Dementia

by Matt Baum
December 3, 2010January 8, 2011

By Matthew L Baum

“A test could indicate whether people in their 40s are more likely to develop dementia later in life, scientists say. But wouldn’t many of us rather not know?” reads the picture caption from a recent BBC News Magazine article .

Is Discounted Therapy Fair?

by Practical Ethics
December 1, 2010January 7, 2011

by David Shipley

A friend of mine is a therapist. She faced the following dilemma.

My friend specialises in enhancing fertility and was approached by a prospective patient who wished to become pregnant but could not afford to pay the standard fee of £45 per treatment as she was on benefits. The woman was aged 40 and had no children. What should my friend the therapist have done?

Who wants to be an abortionist?

by Lachlan de Crespigny
November 25, 2010January 7, 2011

By Lachlan de Crespigny

Dr. Evan James never wavered in his determination to become an abortion provider. But he is unusual – few trainee doctors have a driving ambition to become abortionists. The U.S. has seen a 40 per cent drop in the number of doctors who perform abortions since the early 1980s. Those in the field say there's likely a similar trend in Canada. Few Canadian hospitals provide abortions and numbers are dropping. Other countries, including Australia, have similar service provision problems.

Abortion is lawful in at least some circumstances in almost all western countries. Yet most have too few providers and current providers are aging with few replacements coming through.

Data or life? Ethical obligations to present and future patients.

by Practical Ethics
November 24, 2010January 7, 2011

By Jahel Queralt-Lange

Each year 10.9 million new cases of cancer are diagnosed worldwide, and 6.7 million people die. The good news is that better drugs are developing faster. We all want to hear about “wonder drugs” and the scientific and medical communities feel the urge (and sometimes the pressure) to provide them. However, some ethical problems might appear in our way to this breakthrough. Before being released into the market, any drug has to undergo a trial in which its benefits are tested and weighed up against its adverse effects. Of course, the desirability of increasing our knowledge in order to improve our health is beyond question. What poses problems is that those individuals who participate in the trials are the means by which we achieve that knowledge. Past experiences, like the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment that took place in the US showed that it’s morally outrageous to trade the life of some individuals for the sake of benefiting society. Nowadays the issue is regulated but moral dilemmas persist.

Unintentional contraception

by Anders Sandberg
November 20, 2010

by Anders Sandberg

The pope approves of the use of condoms to fight AIDS: according to an upcoming book he says it is acceptable when the intention is to reduce the risk of infection. While he still views abstinence as the proper way of fighting the disease, "In certain cases, where the intention is to reduce the risk of infection, it can nevertheless be a first step on the way to another, more humane sexuality." Now, how does this fit with the doctrine of double effect? According to this doctrine, it is sometimes permissible when acting towards a good result to bring about a foreseen side effect that on its own would be impermissible. Is contraception hence a permissible side effect of trying to reduce infection risk?

Lethal Ethics: When Philosophical Distinctions Kill

by Practical Ethics
November 12, 2010

by Julian Savulescu

Teresa Lewis died on the 24th of September after being a lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Centre in Virginia. The 41-year-old was convicted of plotting to kill her husband, Julian Lewis, and her stepson, Charles Lewis. She persuaded two men to carry out the murders in return for sex and money. The two men received life sentences. The execution went ahead in spite of protests from lawyers, celebrities and others who argued that she should have been given clemency because of her low IQ. Under US law, anyone with an IQ of 70 avoids the death penalty. Lewis was judged to have an IQ of 72.

Focussing on diseases

by Michelle Hutchinson
November 12, 2010

Further to Julian’s article about Giving What We Can, an important part of helping people as much as possible is to find out which charities do the most good for a certain amount of money. This has been in the news recently with this article. It claims that we are missing out on doing a lot of good by focussing exclusively on certain high-profile diseases, while other diseases impose a greater burden and are much cheaper to treat. This raises the question of why some diseases get much more attention and support than others.

Why Bioenhancement of Mathematical Ability Is Ethically Important

by Practical Ethics
November 4, 2010

by Julian Savulescu

In a paper just released today, Cohen Kadosh and colleagues (Cohen Kadosh et al., Modulating Neuronal Activity Produces Specific and Long-Lasting Changes in Numerical Competence, Current Biology (2010), doi:10.1016/j.cub.2010.10.007) described how they increased the numerical ability of normal people by applying an electrical current to a part of the skull. So what? Most of us don’t do that much maths after leaving school and manage just fine.

« Previous
1
…
23
24
25
26
27
…
38
Next »