-
Belgian coma confusion
By now most readers will have heard about the case of the Belgian man, Rom Houben, apparently misdiagnosed as in a persistent vegetative state for 23 years. Rather than being unconscious, as persistent vegetative state patients are thought to be, he was apparently in the ‘locked-in state’. The locked-in state is not a disorder of
-
Happiness and the Dragon King
By: David EdmondsAs so often, I’m with King Wangchuck. The former King of Bhutan, the fourth ‘Dragon King’, coined the term, Gross National Happiness (GNH). Governments, he thought, should aim to boost the nation’s well-being, rather than target Gross National Product (GNP). He used the phrase after his coronation, an event which, unfortunately, his citizens
-
Is your fingerprint part of you?
In a report expressing concern about the increasing use of biometric information to protect security and privacy, the Irish Council for Bioethics (ICB) claimed earlier this month that “an individual’s biometric information is an intrinsic element of that person”. Such claims are quite commonly made in relation to genetic information, though the ICB’s extension of
-
Are some ethicists really really ethical?
In this blog recently Simon Rippon discussed the empirical evidence collected by Eric Schwitzgebel that suggests that perhaps ethicists are no more ethical in their behaviour than non-ethicists. A survey of academics in the US reveals that philosophers do not think that their peers specialising in ethics behave any better than those who do not
-
Should Psychiatrists Pray with Their Patients?
In a recent interview in the Psychiatric Times (Podcast here: http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/1483619?verify=0) psychiatrist and ethicist Dr. Cynthia Geppert discusses the interesting issue of whether or not it is ethically acceptable for psychiatrists to pray with their patients. Geppert’s discussion is prompted by the case of a patient who had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and
-
Is Religion Good or Bad for Society?
Is Religion Good or Bad for Society? As part of their promotional tour for the book "Is Christianity Good for the World?”, English-American journalist/prominent atheist Christopher Hitchens, together with American evangelical theologian Douglas Wilson, filmed a series of debates centered around the following question: “Is religion absurd or is it good for the world?” Posed
-
Should parents decide? The case of RB
In the Family Court yesterday, a controversial case that has been widely reported in the media came to a premature close. The father of baby RB, a severely physically disabled 13 month-old infant, withdrew his opposition to the plan by RB’s mother and doctors to take him off life support. It is believed that in
-
Science, drugs, policy and Hume
In this blog last week Anders Sandberg discussed the widely criticised sacking of Professor David Nutt from the government’s advisory council on the misuse of drugs. Professor Nutt had openly criticised government policy, in particular the decision by government to change the classification of cannabis and ecstasy against the advice of the government’s scientific experts.
-
God and Chance
As Paul Ewart points out in an interesting recent Guardian article ‘Why God Needs Chance’ — http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/nov/03/god-chance-philosophy-atheism — chance events which result in certain individuals’ suffering undeservedly raise a version of the traditional ‘problem of evil’ for theists. If God, who is meant to be all-good and omnipotent, were to exist, how could he allow
-
Switzerland gets tough on suicide clinics
The Swiss government (the Federal Council) has recently announced its intention to crack down on “suicide tourism” and to severely restrict the activities of suicide clinics like Dignitas and Exit, which have regularly made the headlines outside Switzerland in the last few years (particularly Dignitas), as foreigners make up a large proportion of the hundreds of