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Howick on What Counts as a Placebo
The use of placebos in medicine raises a large number of serious ethical issues. Do they involve deceiving patients, or violating their autonomy in some way? Are they harmful to certain patients, in research trials where the actual treatment being trialled is thought likely to be successful? Can placebos – if medically warranted – be…
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Telling porkies
by Dominic Wilkinson (@Neonatalethics) One of my registrars asked an interesting question this morning. A commonly used life-saving medicine in newborn intensive care is derived from animal products; should parents be told?
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Two Tales of Marshmallows and their Implications for Free Will
Patricia Churchland, a prominent Neurophilosopher, just published a book on neuroscience and its ethical implications which led to a rather nasty exchange in the New York Review of Books with fellow philosopher Colin McGinn. His pointed, to put it mildly, criticism of her work was based on philosophical considerations about the implications neuroscience has, or,…
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Reading in a connected age
There is no doubt that the internet has transformed our lives in multiple ways. Here I will focus on the ways in which it has transformed our cognitive environment. I’m writing these words in Australia; as soon as I press “publish” they will be available to readers all over the world. For an academic, the…
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Not cricket? Law, convention, ethics, and that run-out
Sporting contests are philosophically interesting, as well as enjoyable, because sports and games are full of rules and conventions, which inevitably raise issues of interpretation and give rise to passion about ethics and the spirit of the game. The recent run-out of English batsman, Jos Buttler by the Sri Lankan bowler, Sachithra Senanayake in the…
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Essendon, Doping and Bad Arguments
By Julian Savulescu. @juliansavulescu The Australian newspaper ‘The Sunday Age’ reports today that “The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority has built a ”non-presence” drug case against 34 Essendon footballers, adopting a strategy similar to the one used to ban Lance Armstrong without a positive test.” 1. What should we think about this latest drugs “scandal” at…
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Morality, science, and Belgium’s child euthanasia law
Originally posted on the OUP blog. Reposted with the permission of the author Tony Hope is a Uehiro fellow, Emeritus Professor of Medical Ethics at the University of Oxford and the author of Medical Ethics: A Very Short Introduction. Science and morality are often seen as poles apart. Doesn’t science deal with facts, and morality…
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“Puppy Farm” or “Commercial Breeder”?
As the diverse range of topics on this blog testifies, philosophical questions concerning practical ethics crop up every day, in a variety of circumstances. Today, I had my own ethical dilemma – this time regarding puppies. Having just moved into my new house, I am now searching for a puppy. When I saw an advert…
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Genetically Modifying Mosquitoes to ‘Bite the Dust’? Ethical Considerations
At some point, most people will have questioned the necessity of the existence of mosquitoes. In the UK at least, the things that might prompt us into such reflection are probably trivial; in my own case, the mild irritation of an itchy and unsightly swelling caused by a mosquito bite will normally lead me to…