How should we interpret the sequence of author names in academic publications? Does it inform us about how much each author contributed to the publication? After reading an article on the topic by Gert Helgesson and Stefan Eriksson, I realize that authorship order is a very disorderly matter. The first and last positions are often […]
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A new article highlights ethical challenges that nurses face in their profession when more and more clinical trials are conducted on cancer patients. Nursing alone is stressful. Studies have shown how heavy workload and being pressed for time can cause moral blindness and emotional immunization among nurses. In clinical trials, the situation is even more […]
Continue readingMichele Farisco at CRB has written an interesting post for the BMC blog on medicine. He says that “whereas ethical analyses of disorders of consciousness traditionally focus on residual awareness, there may be a case to be made for the ethical relevance of the retained unawareness.” Interested to read more? Here is a link to […]
Continue readingSometimes, physicians have to decide that a cancer patient has such a poor prognosis that he or she should not be resuscitated through cardiopulmonary rescue, if discovered with cardiac arrest. The procedure is violent and would in these cases cause unnecessary suffering. The situation is stressful for the healthcare team no matter which decision is […]
Continue readingThe honorable discipline philosophy is hardly anything we associate with groundbreaking research and innovation. Perhaps it is time we began to see a connection. To begin with, we can let go of the image of philosophy as an honorable discipline. Instead, let us talk about the spirit of philosophy. People who think for themselves, as […]
Continue readingWe dismiss the magician’s claim to be in touch with the spirit world. We dismiss the priest’s claim to be in touch with the divine. We do not believe in supernatural contact with a purer world beyond this one! Nevertheless, similar claims permeate our enlightened rationalist tradition. Even philosophers promised contact with a purer sphere. […]
Continue readingSelf-driving robot cars are controlled by computer programs with huge amounts of traffic rules. But in traffic, not everything happens smoothly according to the rules. Suddenly a child runs out on the road. Two people try to help a cyclist who collapsed on the road. A motorist tries to make a U-turn on a too […]
Continue readingPeople have started to talk about neuroeducation, but what is it? Is it just another example of the fashion of adding the prefix neuro- to the social sciences, like neuroethics, neuropolitics, neuromarketing and neurolaw? Those who remain sceptical consider it a mistake to link neuroscience with education. However, for some authors, neuroscience can provide useful […]
Continue readingThere are self-modifying computer programs that “learn” from success and failure. Chess-playing computers, for example, become better through repeated games against humans. Could a similar robot also learn to speak? If the robot gets the same input as a child gets when it learns to speak, should it not be possible in principle? Notice how […]
Continue readingWhen we feel low, we often make the mistake of scanning the external environment to find the cause of our state of mind out there. One could speak of the depressed person’s misdirected worldliness. We are convinced that something in the world makes us depressed. We exclude that we ourselves play a role in the […]
Continue readingTHE ETHICS BLOG
A research blog from the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics (CRB)
We write for researchers, healthcare staff, officials, politicians, patient organisations and anyone interested in ethics.
We comment on the research ethics and bioethics debate and discuss our own research. We address issues from current debates in the research community and in the press.
MEET THE EDITOR
Pär Segerdahl is editor of the Ethics Blog and Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics.