This essay is about the timing of research consent, a process that involves participants being given information about, among other things, upcoming research interventions and then being invited to waive their claims against those interventions being undertaken. The standard practice, as regards timing, is as follows: participants are invited to waive all their claims at a single moment in time, and that point in time immediately follows the information-provision. I argue that there we’re not justified in keeping to this practice. (...) What we ought to do is disaggregate the claim-waiving part of the process and move it later, such that the participant is invited to waive her claim against the undertaking of any given intervention only the immediate moment before that intervention is to be undertaken. (shrink)

Works of art can be difficult in several ways. One important way is by making us face up to unsettling truths. Such works typically receive praise. I maintain, however, that sometimes they deserve moral censure. The crux of my argument is that, just as we have a right to know the truth in certain contexts, so too we have a right not to know it. Provided our ignorance does not harm or seriously endanger others, the decision about whether to know (...) the truth ought to be left to us. Within this limit, therefore, difficult art is morally problematic if it intentionally targets those who have chosen not to know. To illustrate the problem, I discuss the literary writings of Søren Kierkegaard, which aim to deceive readers into seeing unpleasant truths about themselves that they seek to ignore. (shrink)