Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy This is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader or to display this data on your own website or blog.

“Green informed consent” in the classroom, clinic, and consultation room
AbstractThe carbon emissions of global health care activities make up 4 –5% of total world emissions, placing it on par with the food sector. Carbon emissions are particularly relevant for health care because of climate change health hazards. Doctors and health care professionals must connect their health care delivery with carbon emissions and minimize resource use w hen possible as a part of their obligation to do no harm. Given that reducing carbon is a global ethical priority, the informed consent process in health care delivery must change. I argue that the expanded role of bioethicists in this climate crisis is to ...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - December 1, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Correction: Abortion, euthanasia, and the limits of principlism
(Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy)
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - November 14, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Potentiality switches and epistemic uncertainty: the Argument from Potential in times of human embryo-like structures
AbstractRecent advancements in developmental biology enable the creation of embryo-like structures from human stem cells, which we refer to as human embryo-like structures (hELS). These structures provide promising tools to complement —and perhaps ultimately replace—the use of human embryos in clinical and fundamental research. But what if these hELS—when further improved—also have a claim to moral status? What would that imply for their research use? In this paper, we explore these questions in relation to the traditiona l answer as to why human embryos should be given greater protection than other (non-)human cel...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - October 30, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

A reply to Gillham on the impairment principle
AbstractThe impairment argument claims that abortion is immoral, because it results in a greater impairment to a fetus than other actions that are clearly immoral, such as inflicting fetal alcohol syndrome. Alex Gillham argues that the argument requires clarification of the meaning of greater impairment. He proposes two definitions, and points out the difficulties with each. In response, I argue that while the impairment argument ’s definition of greater impairment is narrow in scope, it is sufficient for its intended purpose. Broadening its scope to more controversial comparisons of impairment is likely to undermine the...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - October 30, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Green bioethics
(Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy)
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - October 19, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

How do roles impact suicidal agents ’ obligations?
AbstractIn this paper, I assess the role responsibility argument that claims suicidal agents have obligations to specific people not to kill themselves due to their roles. Since the plausibility of the role responsibility argument is clearest in the parent –child relationship, I assess parental obligations. I defend a view that says that normative roles, such as those of a parent, are contractual and voluntary. I then suggest that the normative parameters for some roles preclude permissible suicide because the role-related contract includes a promis e to provide continuing care and emotional support. I propose that as we...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - October 18, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Foucault and medicine: challenging normative claims
AbstractSome of Michel Foucault ’s work focusses on an archeological and genealogical analysis of certain aspects of the medical episteme, such as ‘Madness and Civilization’ (1964/2001), ‘The Birth of the Clinic’ (1973) and ‘The History of Sexuality’ (1978/2020a). These and other Foucauldian works have often been invoked to characterize, but also to normatively interpret mechanisms of the currently existing medical episteme. Writers conclude that processes of patient objectification, power, medicalization, observation and discipline are widespread in various areas where the medical specialty operates and that...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - September 25, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

First-person disavowals of digital phenotyping and epistemic injustice in psychiatry
AbstractDigital phenotyping will potentially enable earlier detection and prediction of mental illness by monitoring human interaction with and through digital devices. Notwithstanding its promises, it is certain that a person ’s digital phenotype will at times be at odds with their first-person testimony of their psychological states. In this paper, we argue that there are features of digital phenotyping in the context of psychiatry which have the potential to exacerbate the tendency to dismiss patients’ testimony an d treatment preferences, which can be instances of epistemic injustice. We first explain what epistemi...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - September 19, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Defending explicability as a principle for the ethics of artificial intelligence in medicine
AbstractThe difficulty of explaining the outputs of artificial intelligence (AI) models and what has led to them is a notorious ethical problem wherever these technologies are applied, including in the medical domain, and one that has no obvious solution. This paper examines the proposal, made by Luciano Floridi and colleagues, to include a new ‘principle of explicability’ alongside the traditional four principles of bioethics that make up the theory of ‘principlism’. It specifically responds to a recent set of criticisms that challenge the supposed need for such a principle to perform an enabling role in relation ...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - August 29, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Research ethics in practice: An analysis of ethical issues encountered in qualitative health research with mental health service users and relatives
This article aims to provide an illustration of research ethics in practice by reflecting on the ways in which we identified and addressed ethical and methodological issues that arose in the context of an interview study with mental health service users and relatives. We describe the challenges we faced and the solutions we found in relation to the potential vulnerability of research participants, the voluntariness of consent, the increase of participant access and the heterogeneity of the sample, the protection of privacy and interna l confidentiality, and the consideration of personal and contextual factors. (Source: Med...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - August 28, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Correction to: Precision medicine and the problem of structural injustice
(Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy)
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - August 28, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Justifying a morally permissible breach of contract: kantian ethics, nozickian justice, and vaccine patents
This article explores the ethics of breaching unfair contracts and argues that it is morally justified to breach contracts with pharmaceutical companies concerning vaccine patents. I offer two arguments to support this view. Firstly, contracts may be breachable in some situations. The ones I point out are that contracts can be broken when the costs of not violating vaccine patents are too high or when the process for agreement is not fair, or when an urgent ethical issue needs to be addressed and it is possible to compensate the other party for their loss. Secondly, I argue that because the contracts with the pharmaceutica...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - July 21, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Abortion, euthanasia, and the limits of principlism
AbstractPrinciplism is an ethical framework that has dominated bioethical discourse for the past 50  years. There are differing perspectives on its proper scope and limits. In this article, we consider to what extent principlism provides guidance for the abortion and euthanasia debates. We argue that whilst principlism may be considered a useful framework for structuring bioethical discourse, it does not in itself allow for the resolution of these neuralgic policy discussions. Scholars have attempted to use principlism to analyse the ethics and legality of abortion and euthanasia; but such efforts are methodologically pro...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - July 20, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Ontological insecurity in the post-covid-19 fallout: using existentialism as a method to develop a psychosocial understanding to a mental health crisis
AbstractIn the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic we are witnessing a significant rise in mental illness diagnosis and corresponding anti-depressant prescription uptake. The drug response to this situation is unsurprising and reinforces the dominant role (neuro)biology continues to undertake within modern psychiatry. In contrast to this biologically informed, medicalised approach, the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued a statement stressing the causal role of psychological and social factors.Using the concept of ontological insecurity, contextualised within the WHO guidance, the interrelation of psychological and social fac...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - June 30, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research

Intentional presence and the accompaniment of dying patients
AbstractIn this paper, we offer a phenomenological and hermeneutical perspective on the presence of clinicians who care for the suffering and dying patients in the context of end-of-life care. Clinician presence is described as a way of (1) being present to the patient and to oneself, (2) being in the present moment, and (3) receiving and giving a presence (in the sense of a gift). We discuss how presence is a way of restoring human beings ’ relational and dialogical nature. To inform a different perspective on relational ethics, we also discuss how accompaniment refers to the clinician’s awareness of the human conditi...
Source: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy - June 20, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research