Year: 2016 (Page 3 of 4)

Legal abortion: the right to move on

13 April, 2016 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

With brave new ideas you can astonish the world. In the past months the youth association of the Swedish party, the Liberals, made several proposals that astonished not least the mother party – for example, that incest and necrophilia should be allowed. The state should not control individuals’ love life.

Probably, the young politicians are quite proud of their radicalism. They are more liberal than liberalism itself. But what is their radicalism made of?

In March, another radical proposal was made. This time it was about abortion. Women have the right to choose abortion until the 18th week of pregnancy. But men don’t have a corresponding right to opt out of their parenthood. The proposal is about correcting this unfair distribution of the freedom to decide about parenthood.

How? By giving men the right to disclaim paternity until the 18th week of pregnancy: so-called legal abortion. Through the proposal, men get the same right as women to decide if they want to become parents. Thus, justice is restored.

One can surmise that the mother party dreams of making their own little abortion. But listen to how splendid it can sound when one astonishes the world with brave new ideas:

“It’s about men also being able to choose whether they want to become parents or not.”
“Men should have the same right to opt out of parenthood.”

Indeed, it sounds magnificent: the liberal youth association wants to correct a fundamental asymmetry between the rights of men and women! They are fighting for a more equal society!

I suggest that the “equality” here is purely verbal. It sits on the surface of an individualist language of rights and freedoms, with the words “man,” “woman” and “equal right.” Scratch the surface and the beautiful symmetry disappears.

One thing that is hidden by the jargon, for example, is that the woman’s decision concerns a fetus. But if she doesn’t abort, the man’s abortion decision will be about a child who will be born, and who will live, “legally aborted.”

Another thing that is hidden is that if the woman chooses abortion, neither party becomes a parent, because no child is born. But if she gives birth to the baby, the man will be the father of the child, whether he disclaims legal paternity or not. Law is not everything in life. When a child is born, there is a parenthood that cannot be disclaimed, for the child can say: “My father aborted me.” Only the woman’s abortion decision can completely abolish parenthood.

A third thing that is hidden is that something rings false in the individualist talk about parenthood as my parenthood and your parenthood; as the woman’s parenthood and the man’s. To crown it all, the fetus as well as the child are absent in this reasoning about male and female parenthood – curious! Are they already aborted? Did the young politicians forget something rather central, in their eagerness to develop truly liberal ideas about parenthood?

In order not to be disturbed by all this, in order not hear how false it rings, one must purify an individualist jargon of rights and freedoms, and then lock oneself in it. This is where the youth association’s radicalism lies: in language. It purifies (parts of) the language of liberalism, but as mere linguistic exercises with the words “man,” “woman” and “equal right.”

The radicalism isn’t political, but linguistic. Therefore, one feels instinctively that the discussion that the youth association wants to start up cannot be political, but merely continued exercise of pure concepts – like when schoolchildren plod through grammatical examples to one day be able to speak a language that still is foreign to them.

Ludwig Wittgenstein described such pure conceptual exercises as language that idles, like an engine can idle without doing its work. In this case, it is the language of liberalism that is idling.

I propose a good dose of Wittgenstein.

Pär Segerdahl

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Global bioethics: each culture its own “ethnobioethics”?

6 April, 2016 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

With globalization bioethics is spread over the world. The process isn’t without friction, since bioethics is associated with Western philosophy. Is that thinking applicable to other cultures? Parts of the world where bioethics is spread may also have a colonial history, such as Africa. Should they now once again come under Western influence?

In an article in the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, Sirkku K. Hellsten discusses the role of philosophy in global bioethics. She uses the example of Africa, where discussions about a unique African philosophy have been intense. But she also quotes Henry Odera Oruka, wondering why so much time is spent discussing what distinguishes African philosophy, when so little time is devoted to actually practicing it.

To investigate the role of philosophy in global bioethics, Hellsten distinguishes (inspired by Odera Oruka) four forms of philosophy. I reproduce two of them here:

Ethnophilosophy: Here it is assumed that different cultures often have incommensurable conceptions and worldviews. Bioethical key concepts – personhood, rationality, autonomy, consent, human nature, human well-being – have as many interpretations as there are cultures. The aim seems to be to develop these interpretations of Western ethical concepts and principles, to develop culture specific “ethnobioethics.”
Professional philosophy: Professional philosophers, says Hellsten, are academically trained in critical, impartial, logical argument. (She distinguishes professional philosophy from the ideological tendencies of Peter Singer and John Harris). Although professional philosophers are influenced by their culture, they can recognize these biases and subject them to self-critical examination. Professional philosophy is self-correcting.

Hellsten points out that ethnophilosophical thinking, in its quest to carve out culture specific “ethnophilosophies,” on the contrary tends to make sweeping generalizations about cultural views, creating false oppositions. Moreover, ethnophilosophical thinking is at risk justifying double standards in biomedical practices. It can make it seem reasonable to ask for individual consent in individualistic cultures but not in collectivist.

Hellsten suggest that what global bioethics needs is professional philosophy. It can impartially scrutinize arguments and reveal contradictions and unclear thinking, and it can keep ethics at arm’s length from politics and rhetoric. It is a universal form of human thought that should be accessible to all cultures. Through professional philosophy, global bioethics can become universal bioethics.

What do think about this? I believe that Hellsten’s emphasis of “universality” does not quite strikingly describe the point I think she actually has. In order to understand in what sense she has a point, I believe we need to understand that bioethics is not only as a form of “thinking,” but also a concrete component of contemporary social structure.

Law (to take another example) isn’t just a form of “thinking” but also an organized part of the social structure: a legal system. During the twentieth century, we saw the birth of bioethics as another part of the social structure: as an organized way to deal with certain issues of health care and biomedical research (other parts of the social structure). Bioethics therefore has an obvious place in the social structure, and that place is: the university, with its resources for research and education.

So where do I locate Hellsten’s point when she claims professional philosophy’s role in global bioethics? Not in the view that professional philosophy supposedly is “universal thinking,” but in the fact that the university is the place of bioethics in the social structure. If we build hospitals and invest in advanced medical research and education, and if we develop legislation for these activities, it is in the university that bioethics finds the resources it needs to play its role.

So why is “professional philosophy” relevant for bioethics in Africa? In my view, precisely because one builds hospitals and makes investments in medical research and education. It would be odd if the efforts to build such a society were combined with an emphasis on tradition-bound “ethnophilosophy.”

We need to be clear about where we are: in the midst of an ongoing construction of society. And we need to be clear about the fact that ethics, in addition to being a personal concern, also has become an important “apparatus” in the social structure. In Africa, and elsewhere, it will certainly be faced with unique bioethical issues, like the legal system is faced with unique problems in different parts of the world.

At the same time, it is important to emphasize, as Hellsten does, the open and self-critical nature of global bioethics.

(I want to thank the Global Bioethics Blog for drawing my attention to Hellsten’s article.)

Pär Segerdahl

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Notebook, not Facebook

30 March, 2016 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

I take the liberty of striking a blow for the notebook.

I miss the voices people develop when they use to keep their own notes. The conversation with yourself gives depth – “I have thought about this” – to your conversation with others.

The erosion of collegial structures at universities is worrisome. But what especially concerns me is the notebook culture, which I believe needs to be rediscovered. Without own notebooks, no real education and no real knowledge.

It isn’t about withdrawing to one’s study to write esoteric notes. It is about developing one’s own groundwork in the life with others. It is developed in (temporary) seclusion, in response to life with others. Then you can converse, because you will have something to say, something of your own.

Cultures deepen through the rumination in diaries and notebooks. Without this simple practice, cultures erode and voices sound thinner. We need to carry culture on our own shoulders.

Kafka recorded in one of his notebooks a picture that I often think of. It is the image of messengers rushing around with messages that they received from other messengers. But it turns out that there is no author of these messages. There are only messengers. I see this as an image of a world without notebooks.

Kant spoke of human authority and autonomy. In Kafka’s picture there is no authority and no autonomy, for no one is the author of their own words: just the messengers of words from other messengers. For once being the author, not only the messenger of what other messengers passed on: wouldn’t that be something!

Become the author of your own words by taking notes! The notebook is the origin of all messages worth communicating. I am a notebook individualist.

To think and reflect is not only about having time. It is about using the time to converse with yourself. That conversation is lifelong. When you converse with others, you convey the lifelong conversation with yourself.

Artists have probably more than others retained the practice of using sketchbooks, of regularly practicing music more informally and privately, of making drafts of stories and novels. That practice gives them a basis to create. We have much to learn from the artists. They are the last to maintain culture, through the sketchbooks in which they constantly scribble.

Nothing is more responsible and authoritative than keeping your own notes. The notes don’t have to be brilliant or groundbreaking. Only your own sincere words with yourself. That is originality! Through the notebook you develop the integrity that is worth defending. And that is worth sharing with others, who of course also have notebooks.

I don’t want to read your Facebook updates, but perhaps your notes. You read mine here. So get a notebook if you don’t already have one. It is the most radical thing you can do today.

Pär Segerdahl

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Critique of the motivation for dynamic consent to biobank research

23 March, 2016 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

Biobank research has undeniably challenged research ethics and the requirement for informed consent. We are after all dealing with collection of biological samples for future, yet unspecified research. Thus, one cannot give donors specific information about the research in which their samples will be used. It might seem like asking them to consent to unknown research projects x, y, z.

While some argue that broad consent for future research is specific enough to be genuine consent to something – one can inform about the framework that applies to the research – others argue that biobank research undermines the autonomy of research participants. Something must therefore be done about it.

Dynamic consent is such a proposed measure. The idea is that participants in biobank research, through a website, will be kept continuously informed about planned research, and continually make decisions about their participation. Through this IT measure, participants are placed at the center of decision making process rather than transferring all power to the researchers. Dynamic consent empowers research participants and supports their autonomy, it is claimed.

In an article in the journal Bioethics, Linus Johnsson and Stefan Eriksson critically examine the understanding of autonomy in the debate on dynamic consent.

First, the authors argue that autonomy is misunderstood as a feat. Autonomy is rather a right people have to decide for themselves what to do in situations that matter to them.

Second, they argue that the concept of autonomy is used too broadly, hiding important distinctions. In fact, three different ways of respecting people are conflated:

Autonomy: respecting people’s right to decide for themselves about what to do.
Integrity: respecting people’s right to draw the lines between private and social life.
Authority: respecting people’s right to take responsibility for themselves, for their families, and for their relations to society.

Authority is respected by empowering people: by giving them the tools they need to live responsibly. In dynamic consent, the website is such a tool. It empowers participants to act as responsible citizens concerning the planning and carrying out of research in society.

By separating three forms of respect which are confused as “autonomy,” the authors can propose the following critical analysis of the motivation for dynamic consent. Rather than respecting people’s right to decide for themselves about what to do, the aim is to empower them. But if the empowerment forces them to sit in front of the computer to be informed, it violates their integrity.

Such intrusion could be justified if medical research were a suitable arena for people’s empowerment as citizens – an assumption which the authors point out is doubtful.

Pär Segerdahl

Johnson, L. and Eriksson, S. 2016. “Autonomy is a right, not a feat: How theoretical misconceptions have muddled the debate on dynamic consent to biobank research.” Bioethics, DOI: 10.1111/bioe.12254

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Searching for consciousness needs conceptual clarification

15 March, 2016 / Michele Farisco / 2 Comments

Michele Farisco We can hardly think of ourselves as living persons without referring to consciousness. In fact, we normally define ourselves through two features of our life: we are awake (the level of our consciousness is more than zero), and we are aware of something (our consciousness is not empty).

While it is quite intuitive to think that our brains are necessary for us to be conscious, it is tempting to think that looking at what is going on in the brain is enough to understand consciousness. But empirical investigations are not enough.

Neuroscientific methods to investigate consciousness and its disorders have developed massively in the last decades. The scientific and clinical advancements that have resulted are impressive. But while the ethical and clinical impacts of these advancements are often debated and studied, there is little conceptual analysis.

I think of one example in particular, namely, the neuroscience of disorders of consciousness. These are states where a person’s consciousness is more or less severely damaged. Most commonly, we think of patients in vegetative state, who exhibit levels of consciousness without any content. But it could also be a minimally conscious state with fluctuating levels and contents of consciousness.

How can we explain these complex conditions? Empirical science is usually supposed to be authoritative and help to assess very important issues, such as consciousness. Such scientific knowledge is basically inferential: it is grounded in the comparative assessment of residual consciousness in brain-damaged patients.

But because of its inferential nature, neuroscience takes the form of an inductive reasoning: it infers the presence of consciousness starting from data extracted by neurotechnology. This is done by comparing data from brain damaged patients with data from healthy individuals. Yet this induction is valid only on the basis of a previous definition of consciousness, a definition we made within an implicit or explicit theoretical framework. Thus a conceptual assessment of consciousness that is defined within a well-developed conceptual framework is crucial, and it will affect the inference of consciousness from empirical data.

When it comes to disorders of consciousness, there is still no adequate conceptual analysis of the complexity of consciousness: its levels, modes and degrees. Neuroscience often takes a functionalist account of consciousness for granted in which consciousness is assumed to be equivalent to cognition or at least to be based in cognition. Yet findings from comatose patients suggest that this is not the case. Instead, consciousness seems to be grounded on the phenomenal functions of the brain as they are related to the resting state’s activity.

For empirical neuroscience to be able to contribute to an understanding of consciousness, neuroscientists need input from philosophy. Take the case of communication with speechless patients through neurotechnology (Conversations with seemingly unconscious patients), or the prospective simulation of the brain (The challenge to simulate the brain) for example: here scientists can give philosophers empirical data that need to be considered in order to develop a well-founded conceptual framework within which consciousness can be defined.

The alleged autonomy of empirical science as source of objective knowledge is problematic. This is the reason why philosophy needs to collaborate with scientists in order to conceptually refine their research methods. On the other hand, dialogue with science is essential for philosophy to be meaningful.

We need a conceptual strategy for clarifying the theoretical framework of neuroscientific inferences. This is what we are trying to do in our CRB neuroethics group as part of the Human Brain Project (Neuroethics and Neurophilosophy).

Michele Farisco

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Resignation syndrome in refugee children – a new hypothesis

22 February, 2016 / Pär Segerdahl / 6 Comments

There has been much discussion about the so-called “apathetic children” in families seeking asylum in Sweden. You read that right: in Sweden, not in other countries. By all accounts, these children are genuinely ill. They do not simulate total lack of willpower; like inability to eat, speak and move. They are in a life-threatening condition and show no reactions even to painful stimuli. But why do we have so many cases in Sweden and not in other countries?

Several hundred cases have been reported, which in 2014 led the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare to introduce a new diagnosis: resignation syndrome. The “Swedish” syndrome appears to be a mystery, almost like a puzzle to crack. There are asylum seeking families all around the world: why does this syndrome occur to such an extent in a single country?

If you want to think more about this puzzling question, I recommended a new article in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, with Karl Sallin (PhD student at CRB) as first author. The article is long and technical, but for those interested, it is well worth the effort. It documents what is known about the syndrome and suggests a new hypothesis.

A common explanation of the syndrome is that it is a reaction to stress and depression. The explanation sounds intuitively reasonable, considering these children’s experiences. But if it were true, the syndrome should occur also in other countries. The mystery remains.

Another explanation is that the mother attempts to manage her trauma, her depression and her needs, by projecting her problems onto the child. The child, who experiences the mother as its only safety, adapts unconsciously and exhibits the symptoms that the mother treats the child as if it had. This explanation may also seem reasonable, especially considering another peculiarity of the syndrome: it does not affect unaccompanied refugee children, only children who arrive with their families. The problem is again: traumatized refugee families exist all around the world. So why is the syndrome common only in Sweden?

Now to Sallins’ hypothesis in the article. The hypothesis has two parts: one about the disease or diagnosis itself; and one about the cause of the disease, which may also explain the peculiar distribution.

After a review of symptoms and treatment response, Sallin suggests that we are not dealing with a new disease. The introduced diagnosis, “resignation syndrome,” is therefore inappropriate. We are dealing with a known diagnosis: catatonia, which is characterized by the same loss of motor skills. The children moreover seem to retain awareness, even though their immobility makes them seem unconscious. When they recover, they can often recall events that occurred while they were ill. They just cannot activate any motor skills. The catatonia hypothesis can be tested, Sallin suggests, by trying treatments with known responses in catatonic patients, and by performing PET scans of the brain.

The question then is: Why does catatonia arise only in refugee children in Sweden? That question brings us to the second part of the hypothesis, which has some similarities with the theory that the mother affects the child psychologically to exhibit symptoms: really have them, not only simulate them!

Here we might make a comparison with placebo and nocebo effects. If it is believed that a pill will have a certain impact on health – positive or negative – the effect can be produced even if the pill contains only a medically inactive substance. Probably, electromagnetic hypersensitivity is a phenomenon of this kind, having psychological causes: a nocebo effect.

The article enumerates cases where it can be suspected that catatonia-like conditions are caused psychologically: unexpected, unexplained sudden death after cancer diagnosis; death epidemics in situations of war and captivity characterized by hopelessness; acute or prolonged death after the utterance of magic death spells (known from several cultures).

The hypothesis is that life-threatening catatonia in refugee children is caused psychologically, in a certain cultural environment. Alternatively, one could say that catatonia is caused in the meeting between certain cultures and Swedish conditions, since it is more common in children from certain parts of the world. We are dealing with a culture bound psychogenesis.

Sallin compares with an outbreak of “hysteria” during the latter part of the 1800s, in connection with Jean-Martin Charcot’s famous demonstrations of hysterical patients, and where colorful symptom descriptions circulated in the press. Charcot first suggested that hysteria had organic causes. But when he later began to talk about psychological factors behind the symptoms, the number of cases of hysteria dropped.

(Perhaps I should point out that Sallin emphasizes that psychological causes are not to be understood in terms of a mind/body dualism.)

It remains to be examined exactly how meeting Swedish conditions contribute to psychologically caused catatonia in children in certain refugee families. But if I understand Sallin correctly, he thinks that the spread of symptom descriptions through mass media, and the ongoing practice of treating “children with resignation syndrome,” might be essential in this context.

If this is true, it creates an ethical problem mentioned in the article. There is no alternative to offering these children treatment: they cannot survive without tube feeding. But offering treatment also causes new cases.

Yes, these children must, of course, be offered care. But maybe Sallin, just by proposing psychological causes of the symptoms, has already contributed to reducing the number of cases in the future. Assuming that his hypothesis of a culture bound psychogenesis is true, of course.

What a fascinating interplay between belief and truth!

Pär Segerdahl

Sallin, K., Lagercrantz, H., Evers, K., Engström, I., Hjern, A., Petrovic, P., Resignation Syndrome: Catatonia? Culture-Bound? Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 29, January 2016

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Macchiarini and the spirit of fraudulence

10 February, 2016 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

I assume you heard of Paolo Macchiarini, the “star surgeon” who, with the willpower of a general, simply would win a great battle at the frontline of research – by creating new tracheae using the patients’ own stem cells. That the endeavor had costs in terms of a few soldiers’ or patients’ lives is sad, but some losses must be accepted if one is to win a major battle in the service of cutting-edge experimental research.

It is difficult to avoid such an interpretation of Macchiarini’s mindset, after seeing the Swedish TV-documentaries about him (“Experimenten”/”The Experiments”). You feel the presence of a dominating iron will to carry out a plan and to win. It feeds a warlike spirit in which collegial doubts must be suppressed because they corrupt the morale and slow down the march forward, toward the frontline.

Truth is, as we know, the first casualty of war. Losses must be described as successes, in order not to lose readiness for action in the final battle – which, of course, will be won, don’t for a moment doubt that! The condition of patients who after surgery barely can breathe must thus be described as if the surgery had given them a nearly normal respiratory function. Macchiarini’s misconduct follows the logic of war.

Imagine this rigid winner, waiting impatiently for patients for whom his unproven methods (with some good will) could be interpreted as a last chance to survive. Does he approach the patients as a doctor who wants to offer a last treatment option? Hardly, but the possibility of interpreting the situation in such a way takes him to the frontline: he gets the opportunity to operate on them.

Does he then relate to the patients as a researcher to his participants? Not that either. For the treatment is only improvised in the heat of battle and can hardly even be called experimental; and all failures will be covered up by more scientific fraudulence.

The fact that research ethics developed in the shadow of the Second World War is hardly a coincidence. Something that worries in the Macchiarini case is that research itself – with its competition for funding and more – obviously can be animated by a warlike and strategic spirit of winning, which corrupts individuals as well as institutions…

It goes without saying that suspected research misconduct should not be investigated by the universities themselves; that there is a need for an independent body that handles such matters.

Pär Segerdahl

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Tired of the human?

3 February, 2016 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

I have on several occasions encountered what could be called: impatience with the human. Haven’t we been humans long enough? Is it not high time that we stopped to perceive the world from our parochial human perspectives, where the sun “rises” every morning and warms us – as if it cared about us!

We speak of beneficial bacteria in the intestinal flora, as if they took care of us as our inner servants. But what do they care about us? We are grossly anthropocentric. It is time to leave this human idyll and become… posthuman. – At least in serious, intellectual contexts.

The parochial illusion in which we supposedly live is often associated with language. Millennia of human endeavor have been deposited in linguistic structures that constantly repeat the same old spectacle in front of our eyes: the world as seen from a human point of view.

The time is ripe for a revolt against our homespun linguistic tradition; for the construction of new materialistic language, free of inherited folk perspectives on a fundamentally indifferent universe, and on us. – At least in serious, intellectual contexts.

The only problem is that even language, if we are to be consistent, must be a piece of folklore. Entities like language, words, statements, and meanings obviously belong to – if we are to be completely consistent – an oral tradition where we, for utterly mundane purposes, talk about “language,” “words,” “statements,” and “meanings.”

It suddenly seems unexpectedly difficult to go beyond the human. There is no language to rebel against. Or the illusion is too powerful: we cannot even speak of resisting it without relying on it. For the very idea of a revolt, the exciting feeling of being near the truth or on its track… is this not all too familiar, all too human? Even more folklore, then?

Perhaps we should rather be impatient with this metaphysical intellectualism, which not very clear-sightedly – it seems – dreams of beholding an absolutely pure reality.

We continue to be humans who sometimes, for various purposes, describe a material reality and take it into account. – Even in serious, intellectual contexts.

Pär Segerdahl

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Online course in research ethics, spring 2016

27 January, 2016 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

Anyone who manages research also needs to be able to reflect on research. Not only the researchers themselves, but also funding bodies, journal editors, members of research ethics committees, administrators, journalists, organizations, politicians, and others.

How do you act if you suspect research misconduct, and what is it? What are the ethical and legal regulations governing data management or research on humans and animals?

If you want to learn more about these issues, or perhaps about publication ethics and authorship rules, conflicts of interest, mentor/trainee responsibilities, biosecurity and more – then we can help you. We give an online course in research ethics for medicine and the life sciences.

The course runs for ten weeks, from April 4 to June 10, every week with its own theme (the last week is devoted to sharing what you learned with your home institution). The course includes video lectures and texts to read, but also interactive exercises and regular e-meetings with other students and with the teacher.

The course is given in English and is open to students from all over the world. If you want to know what some of the former students have to say about the course, you can read more here. And if you want to know who the course is aimed at, read more here.

Research ethical responsibility is vital and it is important that ethics education reaches out. The course fee is € 1.125 (including tax), and to students who cannot receive financial support from their home institution we offer a limited number of scholarships for which application deadline is February 15.

If you don’t need a scholarship you can apply for the course until course start.

Pär Segerdahl

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How are ethical policies justified?

20 January, 2016 / Pär Segerdahl / 0 Comments

Ethical policies for practices such as abortion and embryonic stem cell research should, of course, be well justified. But how does one justify that activities involving the destruction or killing of human embryos and fetuses should be allowed? How does one justify that they should be banned?

Just because the issues are so sensitive and important, they awaken a desire to find the absolutely conclusive justification.

The questions arouse our metaphysical aspirations. Ethicists who discuss them can sometimes sound like the metaphysicians of the seventeenth century who claimed they had conclusive arguments that the soul affects the body, or that it absolutely cannot affect it; who thought they could prove that God is the soul of the world, or that such a view detracts from God’s perfection.

Since both parties claim they have absolutely conclusive proofs, it becomes impossible to exhibit even the smallest trace of uncertainty. Each objection is taken as a challenge to prove the superiority of one’s own proofs, which is why metaphysical debates often resemble meetings between two hyper-sensitive querulants.

This is how I perceive many of the arguments about the embryo’s “moral status,” which are believed to provide conclusive evidence for or against moral positions on abortion and embryonic research – based on the nature of things (i.e., of the embryo).

Others, who want to reason more rigorously before drawing conclusions, instead scrutinize the arguments to demonstrate that we haven’t yet found the metaphysical basis for a policy (you can find an example here). From metaphysical dogmatism to metaphysical pedantry.

The metaphysical vision of an absolute path through life does not seem to give us any walkable path at all. It does not even allow meaningful conversations about what we find sensitive and important. But isn’t that where we need to begin when we look for a justification?

Pär Segerdahl

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Year: 2016 (Page 3 of 4)

Legal abortion: the right to move on

Notebook, not Facebook

Searching for consciousness needs conceptual clarification

Resignation syndrome in refugee children – a new hypothesis

Macchiarini and the spirit of fraudulence

Tired of the human?

Online course in research ethics, spring 2016

How are ethical policies justified?

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