I have in two posts complained about a tendency of ethical practices to begin to idle, as if they were ends in themselves. A risk with the tendency is that bioethics is discredited and attacked as no more than an unhappy hindrance to novel research. Like when Steven Pinker recently wrote that the primary moral goal […]
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I recently wrote about the tendency of ethical practices to lose their vital functions and degenerate into empty rituals. Why is there such a tendency? The tendency is not unique to ethics: it is everywhere. Suddenly, patients and students are to be called “customers” and be treated “as” customers. This can be perceived as an […]
Continue readingBarbara A. Koenig wrote last year about how informed consent has acquired a “liturgical feel” in biomedical research ethics. Each time the protection of research participants is challenged by new forms of research, the answer is: more consent! The procedure of informing and asking for consent may feel like assuming a priestly guise and performing […]
Continue readingWe write for many reasons. To remember, to instruct, to tell, to amuse… Sometimes we write to investigate. Investigate what? Of course, something that we don’t really understand and therefore wonder about. Writing is also a prestigious linguistic medium. Printed products (books and articles) often express the opposite of incomprehension and wonder. This is not surprising, […]
Continue readingAt CRB, an international, multidisciplinary research group works with ethical and philosophical questions that are associated with the neuroscientific exploration of the human mind and brain. As part of the European Human Brain Project, they approach not only ethical questions that arise, or may arise, with the development and practical application of neuroscience. They also […]
Continue readingA new study suggests that the results of genetic tests are not always as reliable as we want to believe. A comparison between laboratories providing these tests shows that the same genetic variant can be interpreted differently. A single gene variant can thus be interpreted as an increased risk of breast cancer by one laboratory, […]
Continue readingWorking as a lawyer in a multidisciplinary centre for research ethics and bioethics, as I do, often brings up to date questions regarding the relationship between law and ethics. What kind of ethical competence does academic lawyers need, and what kind of ethical challenges do we face? I will try to address some aspects of […]
Continue readingNow you can read the second newsletter this year from CRB and BBMRI.se: Biobank perspectives: current issues in biobank ethics and law The newsletter contains four news items: 1. Anna-Sara Lind presents a new book, Information and Law in Transition, and the contributions to the book by CRB researchers. 2. Anna-Sara Lind describes the situation […]
Continue readingWould it be possible to use brain imaging techniques to detect consciousness and then “read” directly in people’s brains what they want or do not want? Could one, for example, ask a severely brain injured patient for consent to some treatment, and then obtain an answer through a brain scan? Together with the philosopher […]
Continue readingResearchers, scientists and professionals who are somehow involved in research, need to develop an ability to detect ethical problems. But we also need to learn how to do something about them. – How can we learn? The Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics (CRB) has developed a web-based training in research ethics. And now we are […]
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.