About thirty-five years ago, Stephen Toulmin wrote an article on the topic: How medicine saved the life of ethics. I think it is still worth reading. Toulmin argued roughly as follows: During the first six decades of the 1900s, ethics wasn’t feeling well at all. One might say that it suffered from moral aphasia: it […]
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Public health campaigns do to some extent infringe upon our lives. Maybe we are prepared to allow some of these intrusions. We protest a little, just for show, but still adopt the message and begin to think that we probably ought to eat a little more X and a little less Y. Some campaigns, however, […]
Continue readingIf you did not get your fill during the Europe biobank week in Vienna, we give you more biobank related news in the latest issue of Biobank Perspectives, our newsletter on current issues in biobank ethics and law. This time, Moa Kindström Dahlin describes what BBMRI-ERIC’s new federated Helpdesk for ELSI-issues can offer. We also […]
Continue readingCritically ill patients sometimes have such a poor prognosis that cardiopulmonary resuscitation for cardiac arrest (CPR) would not help. They are so weak that they would not survive the treatment. If they survive, they do so with even poorer quality of life. The physician can then write a so-called DNR decision, which means that CPR […]
Continue readingAt CRB we seek new ways to study how people respond to health information, especially risk information, and how they make trade-offs between risks and benefits. We are right now looking for a PhD student who can work in one of these projects. The task involves both qualitative and quantitative work, including so-called Discrete Choice […]
Continue readingResearch ethics is complex and requires considering issues from several perspectives simultaneously. I’ve written about the temptation to reduce research ethics to pure protection ethics. Then not as much needs to be kept in mind. Protection is the sole aim, and thinking begins to resemble the plot of an adventure film where the hero finally […]
Continue readingWhat a joy it is to read a real philosopher! This summer I read David Hume and was puzzled by this question: Why is Hume so stimulating to read, when the experts’ comments to his philosophical system are so tedious? If the system is what’s important, shouldn’t the exposition of the system by knowledgeable commentators […]
Continue readingGenetic diseases can arise in strange ways. So-called recessive diseases require that both parents have the gene for the disease. The parents can be healthy and unaware that they are carriers of the same non-dominant disease gene. In these cases, the risk that the child develops the disease is 25 percent. In families with a […]
Continue readingSystems for ethical review of research would never have been developed if it were not for the need to protect research participants from being exploited, exposed to excessive risks, or injured. Considering how several research scandals strengthened this protection motive, it is easy to believe that protection is the sole aim of research ethics. This […]
Continue readingMedia do not generally represent the general public’s views on synthetic biology nor, regrettably, render a balanced or thoughtful picture of the field. Until now media cannot represent a starting point nor can they facilitate a public debate on synthetic biology, which would be desirable for a responsible and responsive development of the field. In […]
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.