The Ethics Blog

A blog from the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics (CRB)

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Consciousness and complexity: theoretical challenges for a practically useful idea

Contemporary research on consciousness is ambiguous, like the double-faced god Janus. On the one hand, it has achieved impressive practical results. We can today detect conscious activity in the brain for a number of purposes, including better therapeutic approaches to people affected by disorders of consciousness such as coma, vegetative state and minimally conscious state. […]

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To change the changing human

Neuroscience contributes to human self-understanding, but it also raises concerns that it might change humanness, for example, through new neurotechnology that affects the brain so deeply that humans no longer are truly human, or no longer experience themselves as human. Patients who are treated with deep brain stimulation, for example, can state that they feel […]

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New dissertation on patient preferences in medical approvals

During the spring, several doctoral students at CRB successfully defended their dissertations. Karin Schölin Bywall defended her dissertation on May 12, 2021. The dissertation, like the two previous ones, reflects a trend in bioethics from theoretical investigations to empirical studies of people’s perceptions of bioethical issues. An innovative approach in Karin Schölin Bywall’s dissertation is […]

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Can you be cloned?

Why can we feel metaphysical nausea at the thought of cloned humans? I guess it has to do with how we, without giving ourselves sufficient time to reflect, are captivated by a simple image of individuality and cloning. The image then controls our thinking. We may imagine that cloning consists in multiplying our unique individuality […]

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