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A Heresy of No Consequence: Duties and Virtues in Medicine and Professionalism
Perspect Biol Med. 2023;66(1):179-194. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2023.0010.ABSTRACTIn The Trusted Doctor: Medical Ethics and Professionalism (2020), Rosamond Rhodes presents a new theory of medical ethics based on 16 duties she considers central to medical ethics and professionalism. She asserts that her theory is "bioethical heresy," as it contradicts established "principlism" and "common morality" approaches to ethics in medicine. Rhodes advocates the development of parallelism between clinical and ethical decision-making and a systematic approach that emphasizes duties over principles and rules to facilitate the development of a...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Vincent Kopp Source Type: research

Living Donor Ethics and Uterus Transplantation
This article provides an in-depth ethical analysis of living donor uterus transplantation, incorporating clinical, psychological, and qualitative study data into the discussion. Although the concept of living organ donors as patients in their own right has not always been present in the field of transplantation, this conceptualization informs the framework for living donor ethics that we apply to living uterus donation. This framework takes root in the principles of research ethics, which include respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. It incorporates an analysis based on eight potential vulnerabilities of living do...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Anji E Wall Giuliano Testa Source Type: research

Organismal Superposition Problem and Nihilist Challenge in the Definition of Death
Perspect Biol Med. 2024;67(1):1-21. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2024.a919707.ABSTRACTAccording to the mainstream bioethical stance, death constitutes the termination of an organism. This essay argues that such an understanding of death is inappropriate in the usual context of determining death, since it also has a social bearing. There are two reasons to justify this argument. First, the mainstream bioethical definition generates an organismal superposition challenge, according to which a given patient in a single physiological state might be both alive and dead, like Schrödinger's cat. Therefore, there is no clear answer as to whet...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Piotr Grzegorz Nowak Source Type: research

Organismal Superposition and Death
Perspect Biol Med. 2024;67(1):22-30. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2024.a919708.ABSTRACTOrganismal superposition holds that the same individual both is and is not an organism, as a consequence of organismal pluralism. When coupled with the assumption that death is the cessation of an organism, this entails that there is no unique answer as to whether brain death is biological death. This essay argues that concerns about organismal pluralism and superposition do not undermine a theory of biological death, nor entail any metaphysical indeterminacy about the biological vital status of a brain-dead individual.PMID:38662061 | DOI:10.1353/pb...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Michael Nair-Collins Source Type: research

"Inherently Limited by Our Imaginations": Health Anxieties, Politics, and the History of the Climate Crisis
Perspect Biol Med. 2024;67(1):31-62. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2024.a919709.ABSTRACTAs global warming became a cause of concern in the 1980s, researchers and climate activists initially paid little attention to the possible health effects of a warmer world. This changed quickly between 1985 and 1989, when scientists working on contracts with the US Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency extrapolated from existing knowledge about the impact of weather on health to speculate about how global warming would impact health. However, they downplayed the impact of their contributions by highlighting the uncertainty in...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: David Shumway Jones Source Type: research

Bios-Ethics and the Bios Emergency: Finding the Real Work
This article presents a case for transforming traditional bioethics into "Bios-ethics." This exposition relies on three propositions: (1) the climate emergency is the "Bios emergency"; (2) in the Bios emergency, bioethics must be replaced by Bios-ethics; and (3) the top and overwhelming priority of Bios-ethics is to address the Bios emergency. Biocentrism, habitat, and environmental ethics are discussed in light of their contribution to the development of Bios-ethics, and potential lines of research in Bios-ethics are outlined. The urgency of undertaking substantive conceptual and practical innovations in response to our c...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: David Schenck Source Type: research

Euthanasia and End-of-Life Decisions: From the Empirical Turn to Moral Intuitionism
This article employs a "revisionary" intuititionist perspective to discuss the results of a clinical ethics study about intensivists' perceptions of withhold or withdraw decisions. The results show that practitioners' moral experience is at odds with both the discontinuity and equivalence theses. This outcome allows us to revisit certain concepts, such as intention and causal relationship, that are prominent in the conceptual debate. Intensivists also regard end-of-life decisions as being on a scale from least to most active, and whether they regard active forms of end-of-life decisions as ethically acceptable depends on t...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Marta Spranzi Source Type: research

Diagnosis: What Is the Structure of Its Reasoning?
Perspect Biol Med. 2024;67(1):88-95. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2024.a919712.ABSTRACTHow does the diagnosis process work? This essay traces the philosophical underpinnings of diagnosis from Hume through Kant, Peirce, and Popper, analyzing how pathologists amalgamate sensibility, intuition, and imagination to form new hypotheses that can be tested by evidence and experience.PMID:38662065 | DOI:10.1353/pbm.2024.a919712 (Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine)
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Donald E Stanley Robert Hanna Source Type: research

Lived Religion in Religious Vaccine Exemptions
Perspect Biol Med. 2024;67(1):96-113. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2024.a919713.ABSTRACTThis essay explores a more inclusive and equitable interpretation of "religion" within the context of religious vaccine exemptions. The existing literature critiques the prevalent interpretation of the meaning of religion in religious exemption cases, but frequently overlooks the importance of incorporating the concept of "lived religion." This essay introduces the concept of lived religion from religious studies, elucidates why this lived religion approach is crucial for redefining "religion," and illustrates its application in the domain of relig...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Hajung Lee Source Type: research

Introduction to the Special Section on Psychedelics Research and Treatment
Perspect Biol Med. 2024;67(1):114-116. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2024.a919714.NO ABSTRACTPMID:38662067 | DOI:10.1353/pbm.2024.a919714 (Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine)
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Dominic Sisti Source Type: research

Bio-Psycho-Spiritual Perspectives on Psychedelics: Clinical and Ethical Implications
Perspect Biol Med. 2024;67(1):117-142. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2024.a919715.ABSTRACTPsychedelics have again become a subject of widespread interest, owing to the reinvigoration of research into their traditional uses, possible medical applications, and social implications. As evidence for psychedelics' clinical potential mounts, the field has increasingly focused on searching for mechanisms to explain the effects of psychedelics and therapeutic efficacy of psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT). This paper reviews three general frameworks that encompass several prominent models for understanding psychedelics' effects-specifically, ne...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Logan Neitzke-Spruill Nese Devenot Dominic Sisti Lynnette A Averill Amy L McGuire Source Type: research

Are Psychedelic Experiences Transformative? Can We Consent to Them?
This article argues, however, that there is limited evidence that psychedelic experiences are transformative in Paul's sense, and that they may not differ in their transformative features from other common medical experiences for which informed consent is clearly possible. Further, even if psychedelic experiences can be transformative, informed consent is still possible. Because psychedelic experiences are importantly different in several respects from other medical experiences, this article closes with recommendations for how these differences should be reflected in informed consent processes.PMID:38662069 | DOI:10.1353/p...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Brent M Kious Andrew Peterson Amy L McGuire Source Type: research

Valuing the Acute Subjective Experience
Perspect Biol Med. 2024;67(1):155-165. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2024.a919717.ABSTRACTPsychedelics, including psilocybin, and other consciousness-altering compounds such as 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), currently are being scientifically investigated for their potential therapeutic uses, with a primary focus on measurable outcomes: for example, alleviation of symptoms or increases in self-reported well-being. Accordingly, much recent discussion about the possible value of these substances has turned on estimates of the magnitude and duration of persisting positive effects in comparison to harms. However, many have descr...
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Katherine Cheung Brian D Earp David B Yaden Source Type: research

Does Bioethics Need Ethical Theories?
Perspect Biol Med. 2024;67(1):166-179. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2024.a919718.ABSTRACTThe relationship between philosophy and bioethics remains a matter of perennial debate, but there does appear to be a consensus on one issue: whatever bioethics might want to borrow from philosophical ethics, it won't be normative theories. This essay argues that theories can have an important role to play in bioethics, though it might not be the one traditionally assumed by philosophers.PMID:38662071 | DOI:10.1353/pbm.2024.a919718 (Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine)
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - April 25, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Wayne Sumner Source Type: research

Erratum
Perspect Biol Med. 2023;66(2):i. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2023.0019.NO ABSTRACTPMID:37755712 | DOI:10.1353/pbm.2023.0019 (Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine)
Source: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - September 27, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research