A number of philosophers working in applied ethics and bioethics are now earnestly debating the ethics of what they term “moral bioenhancement.” I argue that the society-wide program of biological manipulations required to achieve the purported goals of moral bioenhancement would necessarily implicate the state in a controversial moral perfectionism. Moreover, the prospect of being able to reliably identify some people as, by biological constitution, significantly and consistently more moral than others would seem to pose a profound challenge to egalitarian (...) social and political ideals. Even if moral bioenhancement should ultimately prove to be impossible, there is a chance that a bogus science of bioenhancement would lead to arbitrary inequalities in access to political power or facilitate the unjust rule of authoritarians; in the meantime, the debate about the ethics of moral bioenhancement risks reinvigorating dangerous ideas about the extent of natural inequality in the possession of the moral faculties. (shrink)

The debate and implementation of Clinical Ethics Consultation is still in its beginnings in Europe and the issue of the patient's perspective has been neglected so far, especially at the theoretical and methodological level. At the practical level, recommendations about the involvement of the patient or his/her relatives are missing, reflecting the general lack of quality and practice standards in CEC. Balance of perspectives is a challenge in any interpersonal consultation, which has led to great efforts to develop “technical”approaches, e.g., (...) in psychological counseling or psychotherapeutic treatment. In ethics, unbalance or partiality is a matter of justice and has provoked significant theoretical work, also relevant for practical medical ethics. A lack of balance seems to be particularly serious in those situations, where ethical conflict is triggering a consultation and where the “parties” involved may try to persuade the consultant that their particular opinion is the most convincing; but to our knowledge the connection between patient/relatives involvement and balance has not yet been discussed in the context of CEC. Central questions of access and involvement of the patient and his/her relatives will be analysed and discussed regarding the challenge of balance and the adequate role or attitude of a Clinical Ethics Consultant. It is argued that the Clinical Ethics Consultant should have a methodological awareness regarding the concepts of “neutrality” versus “advocacy” in his/her role and try to achieve a balanced procedure that allows for an optimum of change of perspectives. The argumentation is developed along the narrative of a real case study. Recommendations concerning the involvement of the patient or the relatives are formulated for the practice of CEC. (shrink)

This article examines two recent scientific studies about reading fiction in order to argue for more thoroughly interdisciplinary work that crosses the too-often-upheld boundary between the humanities and sciences. Taking one of these in particular as a case study, I explore how including a humanist in the experimental process could have impacted many stages of inquiry: from developing more interesting and better contextualized research questions and methods, to providing rhetorical expertise that could reduce the role of “neurohype” as research moves (...) from the lab to the press, to providing an important counterweight to the urge to make hasty recommendations about the translatability of basic science. I argue that the sciences and humanities are important partners in demystifying press coverage of neuroscience and cognitive science developments, and suggest that incorporating humanities approaches could improve the practice of science as it approaches topics typically in the purview of the humanities or social sciences, asking how the goals of scientific advancement could be shaped by work across the disciplines. My ultimate aim is to ask how we can improve science literacy and interdisciplinarity—two pursuits that I argue are inextricably linked. (shrink)