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Talking Back to Science?

Talking Back to Science?

By Stephen Rainey

In June 2017, the European Court of Justice ruled that it was legal for a French citizen to sue a drug company for damages following a vaccination, and an illness. The ruling caused some consternation as it seemed a legal vindication of anecdote over scientific rigour.

This is a dramatic case, not least owing to the position in which vaccines find themselves, post Andrew Wakefield and the rise of the anti-vaxxer movement. Nevertheless, it forms a part of a wider narrative in which scientific activity is not always very open to questions from outside science. This broader theme is worth some scrutiny.Read More »Talking Back to Science?

Guest Post: Track Authorities Are Wrong To Ban Women With Naturally High Testosterone levels

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Michael S. Dauber, MA

 According to a story by Catherine Caruso published in STAT News this week, authorities at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) are getting set to debate whether or not women with hyperandrogenism, or higher-than-expected testosterone levels, should be restricted from competing against women with “normal” or “expected” levels. The debate over the IAAF rules began in 2011, when a rule was first created to prevent women with high testosterone levels competing because of the belief that their hormone levels gave them an unfair advantage. The rule was challenged in 2015, and the IAAF was given two years to provide further justification for its position.

As Caruso writes, the main focus of the current controversy is the legal case of Dutee Chand, an Indian athlete whose testosterone levels exceed “the 10 nanomoles per liter limit, the level deemed to be the lower end of the ‘male range,’” i.e., the amount of testosterone in the blood typically exhibited by male athletes. Testosterone is widely considered a hormone that assists in athletic performance, given that it increases the rate of muscle development and bone mass, among other traits. The idea behind the IAAF’s position is that “unnaturally” high levels of testosterone that exceed levels typical of one’s gender would give such athletes an unfair advantage over other competitiors. Insofar as the IAAF is concerned with creating the fairest competition possible, the presence of elevated testosterone levels in a select group of athletes, like Chand, presents a serious problem.

The problem with the IAAF’s position, however, is that it overlooks one of the central nuances of sporting ethics. It is true that sporting events are supposed to be fair in a wide sense: we would not consider the competition just if one athlete took some action that made it impossible for other athletes to win. This is why athletes are given certain rules to which they must conform. In basketball, for example, one is forbidden from reaching out and grabbing the opposing player’s arm to prevent them from dribbling; in hockey, players are forbidden from tripping each other; and soccer players cannot decide to randomly touch the ball with their hands (unless, of course, they are a goalie).

Read More »Guest Post: Track Authorities Are Wrong To Ban Women With Naturally High Testosterone levels

Vacancy: Researcher in Global Health Bioethics

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The newly established Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities is currently advertising for the post of Researcher in Global Health Bioethics – Grade 7: £31,076 – £38,183 p.a. The post is full-time (part-time considered) and fixed-term for 3 years.

Based within the Nuffield Department of Population Health, the newly established Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities is a collaboration between the Ethox Centre; the Oxford Neuroscience, Ethics and Society Group; the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics; and the Wellcome Unit for History of Medicine. The Centre will conduct multidisciplinary research on the ethical challenges presented by advances in neuroscience, data science, genomics, and global health.

Read More »Vacancy: Researcher in Global Health Bioethics

Does Female Genital Mutilation Have Health Benefits? The Problem with Medicalizing Morality

Does Female Genital Mutilation Have Health Benefits? The Problem with Medicalizing Morality

By Brian D. Earp (@briandavidearp)

 

Four members of the Dawoodi Bohra sect of Islam living in Detroit, Michigan have recently been indicted on charges of female genital mutilation (FGM). This is the first time the US government has prosecuted an “FGM” case since a federal law was passed in 1996. The world is watching to see how the case turns out.

A lot is at stake here. Multiculturalism, religious freedom, the limits of tolerance; the scope of children’s—and minority group—rights; the credibility of scientific research; even the very concept of “harm.”

To see how these pieces fit together, I need to describe the alleged crime.

Read More »Does Female Genital Mutilation Have Health Benefits? The Problem with Medicalizing Morality

What the Present Debate About Autonomous Weapons is Getting Wrong

Author: Michael Robillard

Many people are deeply worried about the prospect of autonomous weapons systems (AWS). Many of these worries are merely contingent, having to do with issues like unchecked proliferation or potential state abuse. Several philosophers, however, have advanced a stronger claim, arguing that there is, in principle, something morally wrong with the use of AWS independent of these more pragmatic concerns. Some have argued, explicitly or tacitly, that the use of AWS is inherently morally problematic in virtue of a so-called ‘responsibility gap’ that their use necessarily entails.

We can summarise this thesis as follows:

  1. In order to wage war ethically, we must be able to justly hold someone morally responsible for the harms caused in war.
  2. Neither the programmers of an AWS nor its military implementers could justly be held morally responsible for the battlefield harms caused by AWS.
  3. We could not, as a matter of conceptual possibility, hold an AWS itself morally responsible for its actions, including its actions that cause harms in war.
  4. Hence, a morally problematic ‘gap’ in moral responsibility is created, thereby making it impermissible to wage war through the use of AWS.

This thesis is mistaken. This is so for the simple reason that, at the end of the day, the AWS is an agent in the morally relevant sense or it isn’t.

Read More »What the Present Debate About Autonomous Weapons is Getting Wrong

Why Vegetarians Should Be Prepared to Bend Their Own Rules

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Alberto Giubilini
Republished from Aeon Magazine

It’s a common enough scenario. A vegetarian has been invited to a friend’s place for dinner. The host forgets that the guest is a vegetarian, and places a pork chop in front of her. What is she to do? Probably her initial feelings will be disgust and repulsion. Vegetarians often develop these sorts of attitudes towards meat-based food, making it easier for them to be absolutists about shunning meat.

Suppose, though, that the vegetarian overcomes her feelings of distaste, and decides to eat the chop, perhaps out of politeness to her host. Has she done something morally reprehensible? Chances are that what she has been served won’t be the kind of humanely raised meat that some (but not all) ethical vegetarians find permissible to consume. More likely, it would be the product of cruel, intensive factory farming. Eating the meat under these circumstances couldn’t then be an act of what the philosopher Jeff McMahan calls ‘benign carnivorism’. Would the vegetarian guest have done something wrong by breaking her own moral code?

Most vegetarians are concerned about animal suffering caused by meat consumption, or about the impact of factory farming on the environment. For simplicity’s sake, I will consider only the case of animal suffering, but the same argument could be applied to the other bad consequences of today’s practices of factory farming, including, for example, greenhouse gas emissions, inefficient use of land, and use of pesticides, fertiliser, fuel, feed and water, as well as the use of antibiotics causing antibiotic resistance in livestock’s bacteria which is then passed on to humans.

Read More »Why Vegetarians Should Be Prepared to Bend Their Own Rules

Animal Welfare, Reducing Meat Consumption and the Instrumental Use of Moral Reasons

Author: Rebecca Brown

In this post, I consider how moral reasons may be used instrumentally – that is, to bring about some desired end. I take as an example the public debate around reducing meat consumption. I suggest that although animal welfare is recognised as important in a number of contexts, it is rarely used as a reason to develop policy to promote plant-based diets. I question whether the (possible) instrumental ineffectiveness of animal welfare-based arguments to reduce meat consumption is a legitimate reason for leaving it out of the debate.

Reducing meat consumption

Recently, there has been quite a bit of discussion around policies to reduce meat consumption, along with other animal-derived products (milk, eggs, cheese, and so on). One curious aspect of the public discussion of a move towards plant-based diets is the near absence of animal welfare as a reason for advocating policies directed at reducing the consumption of animal-derived protein. Indeed, the rather clumsy terms ‘plant-based diet’ and ‘animal-derived protein’ seem specifically designed to distance the discussion from associations with vegetarianism and veganism – two commonly understood, widespread ways to refer to diets which exclude meat and/or animal-derived products. Vegetarian and vegan are associated with established movements and sets of beliefs which typically (though not exclusively) identify welfare as an important, perhaps decisive, reason to avoid farming animals.

Instead of pointing to animal welfare as a reason to reduce meat consumption, advocates of such policies point to the harmful impact on the environment and the health of consumers that results from the farming and consumption of animals. First, it is argued that rearing livestock is generally a less efficient means of producing food than growing crops, and contributes more to greenhouse gas emissions. Second, the consumption of animal-derived protein (particularly red and processed meat) is associated with increased risk of a range of diseases. (More details of these arguments are available in recent reports from researchers at the Oxford Martin School and Chatham House).

There are at least three broad reasons for encouraging people to adopt plant-based diets:

  1. Reasons based on a concern for the environment
  2. Reasons based on a desire to promote health
  3. Reasons based on concerns about (non-human) animal welfare

It seems curious that this third (animal welfare-related) reason is rarely reported or discussed in support of policies to encourage plant-based diets, except through animal rights organisations and groups like the Vegetarian Society.

Why avoid animal welfare?

Read More »Animal Welfare, Reducing Meat Consumption and the Instrumental Use of Moral Reasons

Can We Trust Research in Science and Medicine?

By Brian D. Earp  (@briandavidearp) Readers of the Practical Ethics Blog might be interested in this series of short videos in which I discuss some of the major ongoing problems with research ethics and publication integrity in science and medicine. How much of the published literature is trustworthy? Why is peer review such a poor quality control mechanism? How can we… Read More »Can We Trust Research in Science and Medicine?

Hard lessons: learning from the Charlie Gard case

by Dominic Wilkinson and Julian Savulescu

 

On the 24th July 2017, the long-running, deeply tragic and emotionally fraught case of Charlie Gard reached its sad conclusion (Box 1). Following further medical assessment of the infant, Charlie’s parents and doctors finally reached agreement that continuing medical treatment was not in Charlie’s best interests. It is expected that life support will be withdrawn in the days ahead.

Over the course of multiple hearings at different levels of the court in both London and Strasbourg, the Charlie Gard case has raised a number of vexed ethical questions (Box 2). The important role of practical ethics in cases like this is to help clarify the key concepts, identify central ethical questions, separate them from questions of scientific fact and subject arguments to critical scrutiny. We have disagreed about the right course of action for Charlie Gard,1 2 but we agree on the key ethical principles as well as the role of ethical analysis and the importance of robust and informed debate. Ethics is not about personal opinion – but about argument, reasons, and rational reflection. While the lasting ramifications of the case for medical treatment decisions in children are yet to become apparent, we here outline some of the potential lessons.Read More »Hard lessons: learning from the Charlie Gard case