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Video Interview: Should We Vaccinate Young Children Against COVID?

Video Interview: Should We Vaccinate Young Children Against COVID?

Many who had no doubts whatsoever about having themselves vaccinated against COVID, are much more hesitant when it comes to vaccinating their young children. Is such hesitancy justified?  In this Thinking Out Loud interview, Katrien Devolder talks to Dominic Wilkinson, Consultant Neonatologist and Professor of Medical Ethics at the University of Oxford about the ethical… Read More »Video Interview: Should We Vaccinate Young Children Against COVID?

Your eyes will be discontinued: what are the long-term responsibilities for implants?

by Anders Sandberg

What do you do when your bionic eyes suddenly become unsupported and you go blind again? Eliza Strickland and Mark Harris have an excellent article in IEEE Spectrum about the problems caused when the bionics company Second Sight got into economic trouble. Patients with their Argus II eyes found that upgrades could not be made and broken devices not replaced. What kind of  responsibility does a company have for the continued function of devices that become part of people?

Read More »Your eyes will be discontinued: what are the long-term responsibilities for implants?

Should Vaccination Status Affect ICU Admission?

By Ben Davies and Joshua Parker

Intensive care units around the country are full, with a disproportionate number of patients who have not had a single COVID-19 vaccination. Doctors have been vocal in describing the emotional cost of caring for critically unwell patients suffering from the effects of a virus for which there is an effective vaccine. Indeed, one doctor has gone so far as to argue that the unvaccinated should contribute financially for their care. It is easy to understand doctors’ frustrations given the relentless pressures and difficult decisions they’ve had to face. In the face of very real dilemmas about how to allocate scarce ICU beds, some might wonder whether the NHS should adopt a policy of ‘no vaccine, no ICU bed’.

Read More »Should Vaccination Status Affect ICU Admission?

What is a party?

By Alberto Giubilini

 

There seems to be some confusion these days around what exactly a party is. The Sue Gray report updates on the alleged (i.e. actual) parties at No.10 during lockdowns cast doubts on our certainties.

For what is a party? Intriguing question, for those into philosophy. You start by thinking you know the answer and you end up confused. For example, it is obvious that not all after work drinks at the pub are parties. But what if you have a beer with your comrades in the office? Or a birthday cake appears during after work drinks? All of a sudden we feel less certain. Maybe the drinks have turned into a party at some point.

This is a rather pleasurable exercise, as long as it doesn’t affect everyday communications. It doesn’t really matter.

Except that, all of a sudden, it does. It’s partygate time.

Read More »What is a party?

Cross Post: Is This the End of the Road for Vaccine Mandates in Healthcare?

Written by Dominic Wilkinson, Alberto Giubilini, and Julian Savulescu

The UK government recently announced a dramatic U-turn on the COVID vaccine mandate for healthcare workers, originally scheduled to take effect on April 1 2022. Health or social care staff will no longer need to provide proof of vaccination to stay employed. The reason, as health secretary Sajid Javid made clear, is that “it is no longer proportionate”.

There are several reasons why it was the right decision at this point to scrap the mandate. Most notably, omicron causes less severe disease than other coronavirus variants; many healthcare workers have already had the virus (potentially giving them immunity equivalent to the vaccine); vaccines are not as effective at preventing re-infection and transmission of omicron; and less restrictive alternatives are available (such as personal protective equipment and lateral flow testing of staff).Read More »Cross Post: Is This the End of the Road for Vaccine Mandates in Healthcare?

Impersonality and Non-identity: A Response to Bramble

by Roger Crisp

Consider the following case, from David Boonin:

Wilma. Wilma has decided to have a baby. She goes to her doctor for a checkup and the doctor tells her that…as things now stand, if she conceives, her child will have a disability. . . that clearly has a substantially negative impact on a person’s quality of life. . . [but is not] so serious as to render the child’s life worse than no life at all. . . .[But] Wilma can prevent this from happening. If she takes a tiny pill once a day for two months before conceiving, her child will be perfectly healthy. The pill is easy to take, has no side effects, and will be paid for by her health insurance. . . .Wilma decides that having to take a pill once a day for two months before conceiving is a bit too inconvenient and so chooses to throw the pills away and conceive at once. As a result of this choice, her child is born [with the disability].

Read More »Impersonality and Non-identity: A Response to Bramble

Spiderman and the Meaning of Hope

Written by Hazem Zohny.

In Marvel’s latest ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’, Peter Parker’s girlfriend MJ has a simple philosophy: “If you expect disappointment, then you can never really be disappointed.”

She repeats this at various interludes in the movie, except as the plot gears up to the inevitable showdown with the villains, Peter Parker says to her:

“Here goes nothing. What’s that thing you always say? ‘Expect disappointment and–‘”, but MJ, in a somewhat ham-fisted moment of character development, interrupts him: “No, no, no. No. We’re gonna kick some ass!”

While this exchange was designed to trigger some inner-high five with the audience, I found MJ’s shift from quasi-stoic hopelessness to giddy hopefulness disappointing – here’s yet another story about how we need hope  to defeat the baddies/The Empire/Sauron/Thanos/the aliens/the comet/cancer.Read More »Spiderman and the Meaning of Hope

Social Media and the Loss of Knowledge

written by Neil Levy

Here’s the common view of social media and its epistemic effects. Social media leads to people sequestering themselves in echo chambers, and echo chambers cause extreme and/or unjustified beliefs. When we don’t exchange opinions with a variety of people, we don’t have access to the full range of evidence and argument. Instead, because echo chambers form around already likeminded people, they lead to the entrenchment of initial views, no matter how good or bad they might have been to begin with.Read More »Social Media and the Loss of Knowledge

Cross Post: Vaccine Mandates For Healthcare Workers Should Be Scrapped – Omicron Has Changed The Game

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Written by Dominic Wilkinson, Jonathan Pugh and Julian Savulescu

Time is running out for National Health Service staff in England who have not had a COVID vaccine. Doctors and nurses have until Thursday, February 3, to have their first jab. If they don’t, they will not be fully immunised by the beginning of April and could be dismissed.

But there are reports this week that the UK government is debating whether to postpone the COVID vaccine mandate for healthcare staff. Would that be the right thing to do?

Vaccine requirements are controversial and have led to worldwide protests. Those in favour have argued that it is necessary and proportionate to protect vulnerable patients by making vaccination a condition of employment for healthcare staff. But critics have argued that vaccine mandates amount to a violation of human rights.Read More »Cross Post: Vaccine Mandates For Healthcare Workers Should Be Scrapped – Omicron Has Changed The Game

Guest Post: No, We Don’t Owe It To The Animals to Eat Them

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Written by Adrian Kreutz, New College, University of Oxford

That eating animals constitutes a harm has by now largely leaked into public opinion. Only rarely do meat eaters deny that. Those who deny it usually do so on the grounds of an assumed variance in consciousness or ability to suffer between human and non-human animals. Hardly anyone, however, has the audacity to argue that killing animals actually does them good, and that therefore we must continue eating meat and consuming animal products. Hardly anyone apart from UCL philosopher Nick Zangwill, that is, who in a recent article published in Aeon argues that “eating animals’ benefits animals for they exist only because human beings eat them”. One’s modus ponens is another’s modus tollens, right? Let me unpack and debunk his argument.Read More »Guest Post: No, We Don’t Owe It To The Animals to Eat Them