James Rachels and the morality of euthanasia
AbstractMy fundamental thesis is that Rachels dismisses the traditional Western account of the morality of killing without offering a viable replacement. In this regard, I will argue that the substitute account he offers is deficient in at least eight regards: (1) he fails to justify the foundational principle of utilitarianism, (2) he exposes preference utilitarianism to the same criticisms he lodges against classical utilitarianism, (3) he neglects to explain how precisely one performs the maximization procedure which preference utilitarianism requires, (4) his account of the sanctity of life is subject to the very criti...
Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - March 12, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Jotterand, F., M. Ienca, B. Elger, & amp; T. Wangmo. Eds. Intelligent assistive technologies for dementia: clinical, ethical, social, and regulatory implications. Oxford University Press. 2019. 320 pp. ISBN: 13:9780190459802
(Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics)
Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - February 14, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Ten have, Henk A.M.J. Wounded planet: How Declining Biodiversity Endangers Health and How Bioethics Can Help. John Hopkins University Press. 2019. 376 pp. Hard cover: ISBN: 978-1-4214-2745-4.
(Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics)
Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - February 14, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Death as the extinction of the source of value: the constructivist theory of death as an irreversible loss of moral status
This article challenges Nair-Collins ’ view in three steps. First, I elaborate on the concept of moral status, claiming that to understand this notion appropriately, one must grasp the distinction between direct and indirect duties. Second, I argue that his understanding of moral status implicit in the Transitivity Argument is faulty since it is not based on a distinction between direct and indirect duties. Third, I show how this flaw in Nair-Collins’ argument is grounded in the more general problems between preference utilitarianism and desire fulfillment theory. Finally, I present the constructivist theory of moral s...
Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - February 8, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Bishop, Jeffrey P., M. Therese Lysaught, and Andrew A. Michel. Biopolitics after Neuroscience: Morality and the Economy of Virtue. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022. 288pp. $115.00 (cloth); $39.95 (paper). ISBN 9781350288447.
(Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics)
Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - February 7, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Culturally competent respect for the autonomy of Muslim patients: fostering patient agency by respecting justice
AbstractAlthough Western biomedical ethics emphasizes respect for autonomy, the medical decision-making of Muslim patients interacting with Western healthcare systems is more likely to be motivated by relational ethical and religious commitments that reflect the ideals of equity, reciprocity, and justice. Based on an in-depth cross-cultural comparison of Islamic and Western systems of biomedical ethics and an assessment of conceptual alignments and differences, we argue that, when working with Muslim patients, an ethics of respect extends to facilitating decision-making grounded in the patient ’s justice-related customs,...
Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - February 7, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Kairos in diagnostics
In this study we scrutinize kairos in the context of diagnostics. This has become highly topical as technological developments have caused diagnostics to be performed ever earlier in the disease development. Detecting risk factors, precursors, and predi ctors of disease (in biomarkers, pre-disease, and pre-pre-disease) has resulted in too early diagnoses, i.e., overdiagnoses. Nonetheless, despite vast advances in science and technology, diagnoses also come too late. Accordingly, timing diagnostics right is crucial. In this article we start with gi ving a brief overview of the etymology and general use of the concepts of k...
Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - February 7, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Reviewers, 2023
(Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics)
Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - February 6, 2024 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Sexual citizenship: defending society ’s most disadvantaged
(Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics)
Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - December 27, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The harm threshold and Mill ’s harm principle
AbstractThe Harm Threshold (HT) holds that the state may interfere in medical decisions parents make on their children ’s behalf only when those decisions are likely to cause serious harm to the child. Such a high bar for intervention seems incompatible with both parental obligations and the state’s role in protecting children’s well-being. In this paper, I assess the theoretical underpinnings for the HT, focu sing on John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle as its most plausible conceptual foundation. I offer (i) a novel, text-based argument showing that Mill’s Harm Principle does not give justificatory force to the HT...
Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - November 18, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The risk of normative bias in reporting empirical research: lessons learned from prenatal screening studies about the prominence of acknowledged limitations
AbstractEmpirical data can be an extremely powerful and influential tool in bioethical research. However, when researchers or policy makers look for answers to ethical questions by engaging with empirical research, there can be a tendency (conscious or unconscious) to shape, report, and use empirical research in a way that confirms their own preferred ethical conclusions. This skewing effect - what we call ‘normative bias’ - is often so subtle it falls short of clear misconduct and thus can be difficult to call out. However, we argue that this subtle influence of bias has the potential to significantly influence deb...
Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - November 6, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Moyse, Ashley. Resourcing Hope for Ageing and Dying in a Broken World: Wayfaring through Despair. Anthem Press, 2022. pp. 162. $125.00. (hardcover). ISBN: 13:9781785278617. (Ebook): 10:1:1785278624
(Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics)
Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - November 4, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Refund: a defense of luck egalitarian policy in healthcare
AbstractLuck egalitarianism assigns a central role to personal responsibility in egalitarian justice. In the context of healthcare, luck egalitarianism is the view that the distribution of medical and healthcare resources —or common resources in general—should respond to the (im)prudence of individuals. Recently, Joar Björk, Gert Helgesson, and Niklas Juth have argued that it is impractical to use luck egalitarianism as a normative framework in healthcare because it has no reasonable way of dealing with the impr udent. In response to their argument, this paper first suggests that the epistemic problems of applying luc...
Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - October 30, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Chochinov, Harvey Max. Dignity in Care. The Human Side of Medicine. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023. 184 pp. (print) ISBN 9780199380428, (online) ISBN 9780199380459
(Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics)
Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - October 13, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Age-based restrictions on reproductive care: discerning the arbitrary from the necessary
AbstractPolicies that determine whether someone is allowed access to reproductive healthcare or not vary widely among countries, especially in their age requirements. This raises the suspicion of arbitrariness, especially because often no underlying justification is provided. In this article, we pose the question —under which circumstances is it morally acceptable to use age for policy and legislation in the first place? We start from the notion that everyone has aconditional positive right to fertility treatment. Subsequently, we set off to formulate a framework that helps to determine who should be excluded from trea...
Source: Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - October 11, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
