We are developing the Neurological Disease Ontology (ND) to provide a framework to enable representation of aspects of neurological diseases that are relevant to their treatment and study. ND is a representational tool that addresses the need for unambiguous annotation, storage, and retrieval of data associated with the treatment and study of neurological diseases. ND is being developed in compliance with the Open Biomedical Ontology Foundry principles and builds upon the paradigm established by the Ontology for General Medical Science (OGMS) (...) for the representation of entities in the domain of disease and medical practice. Initial applications of ND will include the annotation and analysis of large data sets and patient records for Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and stroke. (shrink)

This article argues that personal medical data should be made available for scientific research, by enabling and encouraging individuals to donate their medical records once deceased, in a way similar to how they can already donate organs or bodies. This research is part of a project on posthumous medical data donation developed by the Digital Ethics Lab at the Oxford Internet Institute. Ten arguments are provided to support the need to foster posthumous medical data donation. Two major risks are also (...) identified—harm to others, and lack of control over the use of data—which could follow from unregulated donation of medical data. The argument that record-based medical research should proceed without the need to ask for informed consent is rejected, and it instead a voluntary and participatory approach to using personal medical data should be followed. The analysis concludes by stressing the need to develop an ethical code for data donation to minimise the risks providing five foundational principles for ethical medical data donation; and suggesting a draft for such a code. (shrink)

The Significant Interest view entails that even if there were no medical reasons to have access to genetic knowledge, there would still be reason for prospective parents to use an identity-release donor as opposed to an anonymous donor. This view does not depend on either the idea that genetic knowledge is profoundly prudentially important or that donor-conceived people have a right to genetic knowledge. Rather, it turns on general claims about parents’ obligations to help promote their children’s well-being and the (...) connection between a person’s well-being and the satisfaction of what I call their “worthwhile significant subjective interests.” To put this view simply, the fact that a donor-conceived person—who knows she is donor-conceived—is likely to be very interested in acquiring genetic knowledge gives prospective parents a weighty reason to use an identity-release donor. This is because parents should promote their children’s well-being through the satisfaction of their children’s worthwhile significant interests. (shrink)

There has been a troublesome anomaly in the UK between cash payment to men for sperm donation and the effective assumption that women will pay to donate eggs. Some commentators, including Donald Evans in this journal, have argued that the anomaly should be resolved by treating women on the same terms as men. But this argument ignores important difficulties about property in the body, particularly in relation to gametes. There are good reasons for thinking that the contract model and payment (...) for gametes are both inappropriate, and that a model based on altruism should be applied to both sexes. (shrink)

An effective method to increase the number of potential cadaveric organ donors is to make people donors by default with the option to opt out. This non-coercive public policy tool to influence people’s choices is often justified on the basis of the as-judged-by-themselves principle: people are nudged into choosing what they themselves truly want. We review three often hypothesized reasons for why defaults work and argue that the as-judged-by-themselves principle may hold only in two of these cases. We specify further (...) conditions for when the principle can hold in these cases and show that whether those conditions are met is often unclear. We recommend ways to expand nationwide surveys to identify the actual reasons for why defaults work and discuss mandated choice policy as a viable solution to many arising conundrums. (shrink)

Contemporary republicans have adopted a less-than-charitable attitude toward private beneficence, especially when it is directed to the poor, worrying that rich patrons may be in a position to exercise arbitrary power over their impoverished clients. These concerns have led them to support impartial public provision by way of state welfare programs, including an unconditional basic income (UBI). In contrast to this administrative model of public welfare, I will propose a competitive model in which the state regulates and subsidizes a decentralized (...) and nonstatist provision of support for the poor. This model will fix the historically objectionable features of private provision by having the state prevent collusion among private charities, deliver information to recipients about alternative sources of assistance, and give substantial grants to charities as well as tax incentives and vouchers to donors. I will contend that such an approach would do a better job of minimizing domination of the poor than traditional welfare states and may prove more politically feasible than a UBI, at least in the near term in certain national contexts. (shrink)

This article argues that personal medical data should be made available for scientific research, by enabling and encouraging individuals to donate their medical records once deceased, similar to the way in which they can already donate organs or bodies. This research is part of a project on posthumous medical data donation developed by the Digital Ethics Lab at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford. Ten arguments are provided to support the need to foster posthumous medical data donation. (...) Two major risks are also identified—harm to others, and lack of control over the use of data—which could follow from unregulated donation of medical data. The argument that record-based medical research should proceed without the need to secure informed consent is rejected, and instead a voluntary and participatory approach to using personal medical data should be followed. The analysis concludes by stressing the need to develop an ethical code for data donation to minimise the risks, and offers five foundational principles for ethical medical data donation suggested as a draft code. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that childbearing and various kinds of organ donation are morally analogous activities. I argue, further, that the ethos of giftgiving ought to inform our analyses of both of these forms of bodily life support. This reframing of the abortion and organ donation debates yields new insights into two relatively neglected subtopics. First, though frequently asserted, few have demonstrated why bodily life support--especially in the form of childbearing--cannot be morally required. This comparison yields insights into the (...) reasons for such an axiom. Second, while the giving of bodily life support is sometimes exhorted and almost always respected and admired, its intelligibility and political meaningfulness as a moral choice is rarely explored. This analogical wager reveals why one ought to give another bodily life support. In summary, the analogy yields insights crucial to the development of cogent arguments regarding both the grounds for and limits of the responsibility to give bodily life support. Further, the analogy displays the disparity between what has been demanded traditionally of those who are pregnant and of those men (and women) who by virtue of tissue or blood type can offer other forms of bodily life support. The analogy enables reflection on abortion (and organ donation) to develop in a context free of sexist biases. Finally, efforts are made to assess this giftgiving ethos in light of the feminist "hermeneutics of suspicion" regarding arguments which have and can sacralize victimization. (shrink)

If a person requires an organ or tissue donation to survive, many philosophers argue that whatever moral responsibility a biological relative may have to donate to the person in need will be grounded at least partially, if not entirely, in biological relations the potential donor bears to the recipient. We contend that such views ignore the role that a potential donor's unique ability to help the person in need plays in underwriting such judgments. If, for example, a sperm donor is (...) judged to have a significant moral responsibility to donate tissue to a child conceived with his sperm, we think this will not be due to the fact that the donor stands in a close biological relationship to the recipient. Rather, we think such judgments will largely be grounded in the presumed unique ability of the sperm donor to help the child due to the compatibility of his tissues and organs with those of the recipient. In this paper, we report the results of two studies designed to investigate the comparative roles that biological relatedness and unique ability play in generating judgments of moral responsibility in tissue donation cases. We found that biologically related individuals are deemed to have a significant moral responsibility to donate tissue only when they are one of a small number of people who have the capacity to help. (shrink)

We explore the ethics of using motivational interviewing, an evidence-based, client-centred and directional counselling method, in conversations with next of kin about deceased solid organ donation. After briefly introducing MI and providing some context around organ transplantation and next of kin consent, we describe how MI might be implemented in this setting, with the hypothesis that MI has the potential to bring about a modest yet significant increase in next of kin consent rates. We subsequently consider the objection that using (...) MI in this context would be manipulative. Although we cannot guarantee that MI would never be used in a problematically manipulative fashion, we conclude that its use would, nevertheless, be permissible as a potential means to increase next of kin consent to deceased solid organ donation. We propose that MI be trialled in consent situations with next of kin in nations where there is widespread public support for organ donation. (shrink)

We present evidence from a pre-registered experiment indicating that a philosophical argument––a type of rational appeal––can persuade people to make charitable donations. The rational appeal we used follows Singer’s well-known “shallow pond” argument (1972), while incorporating an evolutionary debunking argument (Paxton, Ungar, & Greene 2012) against favoring nearby victims over distant ones. The effectiveness of this rational appeal did not differ significantly from that of a well-tested emotional appeal involving an image of a single child in need (Small, Loewenstein, and (...) Slovic 2007). This is a surprising result, given evidence that emotions are the primary drivers of moral action, a view that has been very influential in the work of development organizations. We did not find support for our pre-registered hypothesis that combining our rational and emotional appeals would have a significantly stronger effect than either appeal in isolation. However, our finding that both kinds of appeal can increase charitable donations is cause for optimism, especially concerning the potential efficacy of well-designed rational appeals. We consider the significance of these findings for moral psychology, ethics, and the work of organizations aiming to alleviate severe poverty. (shrink)

Some people oppose abortion on the grounds that fetuses have full moral status and thus a right to not be killed. We argue that special obligations that hold between mother and fetus also hold between parents and their children. We argue that if these special obligations necessitate the sacrifice of bodily autonomy in the case of abortion, then they also necessitate the sacrifice of bodily autonomy in the case of organ donation. If we accept the argument that it is obligatory (...) to override a woman’s bodily autonomy for the sake of an unborn child’s survival, we must continue to override the bodily autonomy of parents to ensure the survival of their living children, until the parent no longer has a special obligation to their child to the same degree as their special obligation to the fetus. And if the life of a child is truly more important than the bodily autonomy of its parents, as must be the case to force women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, this should remain true until such a time that their children are no longer considered their responsibility. Thus, parity of reasoning suggests that policies compelling the gestation of a fetus should be accompanied by policies compelling organ donation. (shrink)

Five arguments are presented in favour of the proposal that people who opt in as organ donors should receive a tax break. These arguments appeal to welfare, autonomy, fairness, distributive justice and self-ownership, respectively. Eight worries about the proposal are considered in this paper. These objections focus upon no-effect and counter-productiveness, the Titmuss concern about social meaning, exploitation of the poor, commodification, inequality and unequal status, the notion that there are better alternatives, unacceptable expense, and concerns about the veto of (...) relatives. The paper argues that none of the objections to the proposal is very telling. (shrink)

Bu tezimizde klasik İslam düşüncesine, Yunan felsefesiyle olan irtibatına, klasik İslam düşüncesinde astronomi ve astroloji alanlarının oluşumu, gelişimi, bu alanlar içerisinde gerçekleşen düşünce üretimi ve astronomi- astrolojinin kozmoloji ile olan ilişkisi ele alınmaya çalışılmıştır. İlk bölümde İslam düşüncesinin ortaya çıkışına ve bu düşünce geleneği içerisinde geniş bir yer tutan astronomi ve astrolojinin ilimler sınıflandırılmasındaki yerlerine Fârâbî ve İbn Sînâ'nın ilimler sınıflandırması çerçevesinde değinilmiştir. İkinci bölümde ise klasik İslam düşüncesinde astronominin ortaya çıkışı, bu gelenekteki gelişmeleri ve önemli gördüğümüz İslam astronomlarından Bîrûnî, (...) İbn Heysem ve Nasîruddîn Tûsî'nin astronomiye katkılarına değinilmiştir. Üçüncü bölümde İslam düşüncesinde astronomi gibi önemi bir yeri olan astrolojinin de ne olduğu, bu düşünce geleneği içerisindeki yeri ve astronomi-astroloji ilişkisini gözeten, astroloji alanında düşünce üreten Kindî, Bîrûnî, Fârâbî ve İhvân-ı Safâ topluluğunun astrolojiye olan bakış açıları üzerinde durulmuştur. Çalışmamızın son bölümünde ise astrolojinin astronomi ve kozmolojiyle olan ilişkisine değinilmiş, modern bilimle birlikte astrolojinin neden bilim dışında kaldığına değinilmiştir. (shrink)

In the beginning of the COVID pandemic, researchers and bioethicists called for human challenge trials to hasten the development of a vaccine for COVID. However, the fact that we lacked a specific, highly effective treatment for COVID led many to argue that a COVID challenge trial would be unethical and we ought to pursue traditional phase III testing instead. These ethical objections to challenge trials may have slowed the progress of a COVID vaccine, so it is important to evaluate their (...) merit. One common way of doing so is to make an analogy to other social practices that are relevantly similar and which we currently sanction. We submit that non-directed live organ donation (NDLOD) is a promising analogy. After arguing that the risks to volunteers for each activity appear similar, we explore potential disanalogies that would undermine the comparison. We note that there are differences in both the kind and certainty of benefit secured by NDLOD compared to challenge trials. We conclude these differences are insufficient to make NDLOD permissible and challenge trials impermissible. Ultimately, if we think the risks associated with NDLOD are ethically permissible, then we should think the same of the risks associated with COVID challenge trials. (shrink)

As a policy instrument that is deeply rooted in technology assessment, the precautionary principle examines the effects of a given object on humans and the environment. In practice the principle is rarely used to analyze the effects of our safety measures on the object itself or the way it is produced. Yet it is exactly in the effect on the blood procurement system that blood safety regulations based on the precautionary principle have to be particularly careful, as the vast majority (...) of blood products in the Global North are obtained through donations. (shrink)

I aim to understand how the act of becoming an organ donor impacts whether it is permissible for a family veto to override an individual’s wish to donate. I argue that a Consent Model does not capture the right understanding of donor autonomy. I then assess a Gift Model and a Promise Model, arguing that both fail to capture important data about the ability to revoke one’s donor status. I then propose a Promise Acceptance Model, which construes becoming an organ (...) donor as accepting a promise the state makes to you to use your organs. This model, which implies that family vetoes are impermissible, captures the data other models struggle to accommodate. (shrink)

Background: Several countries have recently changed their model of consent for organ donation from opt-in to opt-out. We undertook a systematic review to determine public knowledge and attitudes towards these models in Europe. Methods: Six databases were explored between 1 January 2008 and 15 December 2017. We selected empirical studies addressing either knowledge or attitudes towards the systems of consent for deceased organ donation by lay people in Europe, including students. Study selection, data extraction, and quality assessment were conducted by (...) two or more reviewers independently. Findings: Awareness of the consent model was lower in opt-out countries than in opt-in countries. A majority of the public agrees with opt-in, regardless of the law in their own country. There are ambivalent attitudes regarding the opt-out system. The public tend to prefer opt-in and mandatory choice over opt-out when several options are offered. Interpretation: The assumption that people in opt-out countries are aware of the legal requirements to be excluded from the pool of potential donors is not supported by the results of this review. This is a concern, since ignorance hinders people's autonomy regarding organ donation decision-making. Higher awareness of consent model in opt-in countries may reflect greater efforts to inform the public through campaigns to motivate donation. Legal moves towards opt-out are at odds with people's expressed preferences. Main limitations of this review are the lack of data from some countries, study population heterogeneity, and methodological shortcomings. (shrink)

Bioethical discourse on organ donation covers a wide range of topics, from informed consent procedures and scarcity issues up to ‘transplant tourism’ and ‘organ trade’. This paper presents a ‘depth ethics’ approach, notably focussing on the tensions, conflicts and ambiguities concerning the status of the human body. These will be addressed from a psychoanalytical angle. First, I will outline Lacan’s view on embodiment as such. Subsequently, I will argue that, for organ recipients, the donor organ becomes what Lacan refers to (...) as an object a, the ‘partial object’ of desire, the elusive thing we are deprived of, apparently beyond our grasp. Within the recipient’s body an empty space emerges, a kind of ‘vacuole’, once occupied by a faltering organ. This space can only be filled by a ‘gift’ from the other, by an object a. Once implanted, however, this implant becomes an ‘extimate’ object: something both ‘external’ and ‘intimate’, both ‘embedded’ and ‘foreign’, and which is bound to remain an object of concern for quite some time, if not for life. A Lacanian analysis allows us, first of all, to address the question what organ transplantation has in common with other bodily practices involving bodily parts procured from others, such as cannibalism. But it also reveals the basic difference between the two, as well as the distance between the ‘fragmented body’ of Frankenstein’s ‘monster’—as an aggregate of replaceable parts—and the multiple organ recipients of today. (shrink)

This paper is based on the assumption that the high incomes of some professional sports athletes, such as players in professional leagues in the United States and Europe, pose an ethical problem of social justice. I deal with the questions of what should follow from this evaluation and in which ways those incomes should be regulated. I discuss three different options: a) the idea that the incomes of professional athletes should be limited, b) the idea that they should be vastly (...) taxed by the state, and c) the idea that there is a moral obligation for the athletes to spend portions of their incomes on good causes. I will conclude that in today’s circumstances there are good reasons to advocate both option one (limitation) and option two (taxation), but that priority should be given to taxation. (shrink)

The dead donor rule justifies current practice in organ procurement for transplantation and states that organ donors must be dead prior to donation. The majority of organ donors are diagnosed as having suffered brain death and hence are declared dead by neurological criteria. However, a significant amount of unrest in both the philosophical and the medical literature has surfaced since this practice began forty years ago. I argue that, first, declaring death by neurological criteria is both unreliable and unjustified but (...) further, the ethical principles which themselves justify the dead donor rule are better served by abandoning that rule and instead allowing individuals who have suffered severe and irreversible brain damage to become organ donors, even though they are not yet dead and even though the removal of their organs would be the proximal cause of death. (shrink)

There is a widespread consensus that a commodification of body parts is to be prevented. Numerous policy papers by international organizations extend this view to the blood supply and recommend a system of uncompensated volunteers in this area—often, however, without making the arguments for this view explicit. This situation seems to indicate that a relevant source of justified worry or unease about the blood supply system has to do with the issue of commodification. As a result, the current health minister (...) of Ontario is proposing a ban on compensation even for blood plasma—despite the fact that Canada can only generate 30 % of the plasma needed for fractionation into important plasma protein products and has to purchase the rest abroad. In the following, I am going to suggest a number of alternative perspectives on the debate in order to facilitate a less dogmatic and more differentiated debate about the matter. Especially in light of the often over-simplified notions of altruism and commodification, I conclude that the debate has not conclusively established that it would be morally objectionable to provide blood plasma donors with monetary compensation or with other forms of explicit social recognition as an incentive. This is especially true of donations for fractionation into medicinal products by profit-oriented pharmaceutical companies. (shrink)

Bioethical discourse on organ donation and transplantation medicine covers a wide range of topics, from informed consent procedures and scarcity issues up to transplant tourism and organ trade. Over the past decades, this discourse evolved into a stream of documents of bewildering proportions, encompassing thousands of books, papers, conferences, blogs, consensus meetings, policy reports, media debates and other outlets. Beneath the manifest level of discourse, however, a more latent dimension can be discerned, revolving around issues of embodiment, the moral status (...) of the human body and the concept of bodily integrity. This publication aims to bring these “deeper” questions to the fore. What is envisioned is a “depth” ethics (the moral equivalent of a depth psychology) focussing on the tensions, conflicts and ambiguities at work in bioethical deliberations on organ transplantation, fuelling the viewpoints articulated on the more manifest levels of discourse. Organ donation reopens the question of the status of the body as something which we have, but at the same time are, and as something which constitutes a whole, while at the same time being a set of replaceable elements or parts. (shrink)

In accordance with a recent statement released by the World Health Organization, the Canadian province of Ontario is moving to ban payment for plasma donation. This is partially based on contentions that remuneration for blood and blood products undermines autonomy and personal dignity. This paper is dedicated to evaluating this claim. I suggest that traditional autonomy-based arguments against commodification of human body parts and substances are less compelling in the context of plasma donation in Canada, but that there is another (...) autonomy-based objection to paid plasma donation that has not received sufficient attention. Namely, the stigma that surrounds exchanging plasma for payment makes it difficult to make an autonomous decision to engage in this activity. I suggest that this problem can be overcome in one of two ways; by banning payment for plasma, or by reducing the stigma surrounding this practice. I provide an indication of how we might work to achieve the latter, contending that this possibility should be taken seriously, due to the difficulties in achieving a sufficient supply of plasma without remuneration. (shrink)

MacKay and Robinson (2016) claim that some legal procedures that regulate organ donations (VAC, opt-in, opt-out) bypass people's rational capacities and thus are “potentially morally worse than MAC”, which only employs a very mild form of coercion. We provide a critique of their argumentation and defend the opposite thesis: MAC is potentially morally worse than the three other options.

Convinced that anthropology constitutes the nucleus of K. Wojtyla's thought, the author attempts to discover what kind of anthropology is at the basis of Wojtyla's philosophical writings and the implications of that anthropology. The analysis of the basic structures of Wojtyla's anthropology (the experience of that which occurs and that of action, the structure of the person-act, the transcendence of the person in truth, gift, etc.) leads the author to hold that Wojtyla's philosophy can be considered a coherent metaphysics of (...) the person since the person who acts is not just the method (the conscience of the action), but also the object of study and, above all, the end, that is, to know and to make known to the person his special dignity. Regarding the contribution of Wojytla's anthropology, the author identifies two central themes: the relationship between person and act, and relationality. Regarding the former, Wojtyla effects a synthesis of metaphysics of being and phenomenology: the person is not relative to his acts, because he is a suppositum; nonetheless, the person is in close relationship to his acts. If it were not for these acts the person could not even know himself as subject and could not perfect himself as a person. Regarding the latter, Wojtyla sustains that the person is not person in the singular but in the plural, since each person is in relation with all the others, and this is shown from the phenomena of participation, solidarity, and, above all, donation. The author concludes by sustaining that the multiplicity and the original relationality of the person is one of the aspects of Wojtyla's anthropology that would be worthy of further study. (shrink)

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) diseases are a group of neuromuscular diseases that often cause suffering and premature death. New mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRTs) may offer women with mtDNA diseases the opportunity to have healthy offspring to whom they are genetically related. MRTs will likely be ready to license for clinical use in the near future and a discussion of the ethics of the clinical introduction ofMRTs is needed. This paper begins by evaluating three concerns about the safety of MRTs for clinical (...) use on humans: (1) Is it ethical to use MRTs if safe alternatives exist? (2) Would persons with three genetic contributors be at risk of suffering? and (3) Can society trust that MRTs will be made available for humans only once adequate safety testing has taken place, and that MRTs will only be licensed for clinical use in a way that minimises risks? It is then argued that the ethics debate about MRTs should be reoriented towards recommendingways to reduce the possible risks of MRT use on humans. Two recommendations are made: (1) licensed clinical access to MRTs should only be granted to prospective parents if they intend to tell their children about their MRT conception by adulthood; and (2) sex selection should be used in conjunction with the clinical use ofMRTs, in order to reduce transgenerational health risks. (shrink)

Janet Radcliffe Richards’ The Ethics of Transplants outlines a novel framework for moral inquiry in practical contexts and applies it to the topic of paid living kidney donation. In doing so, Radcliffe Richards makes two key claims: that opponents of organ markets bear the burden of proof, and that this burden has not yet been satisfied. This paper raises four related objections to Radcliffe Richards’ methodological framework, focusing largely on how Radcliffe Richards uses this framework in her discussion of kidney (...) sales. We conclude that Radcliffe Richards’ method of inquiry hinders our ability to answer the very question that it ought to help us resolve: What is there best reason to do, all things considered? (shrink)

Since 1968, the irreversible loss of functioning of the whole brain, called brain death, is assimilated to individual’s death. The almost universal acceptance of this neurological criterion of death had decisive consequences for the contemporary medicine, such as the withdrawal of mechanical ventilation in these patients and organ retrieval for transplantation. The new criterion was successfully accepted in part because the assimilation of brain death state to death was presented by medicine --and acritically assumed by most of societies-- as a (...) scientific and objective fact. Nevertheless, many people do not think that the patients suffering brain death are actually dead. We show here that those people are not necessarily wrong. It can be argued that, in fact, the justification of the neurological criterion is not scientific but moral. We outline the thesis that the problem surrounding the vital status of brain dead patients is due to a confusion between factual and normative questions. Furthermore, we claim that the donation of organs and the withdrawal of life-support could be ethically acceptable even if the patients suffering brain death are considered as alive. As an alternative to the dead donor rule, we propose a justification for organ donation of brain-dead patients based on the (moral) concepts of harm and consent : what truly justifies the procurement of organs on those patients is not that they are dead, but that they wish to donate their organs and that, since they have irreversibly lost their brain, they cannot be harmed. (shrink)

A brain death case is presented and reinterpreted using the narrative approach. In the case, two Japanese parents face a dilemma about whether to respect their daughter’s desire to donate organs even though, for them, it would mean literally killing their daughter. We argue that the ethical dilemma occurred because the parents were confronted with two conflicting narratives to which they felt a “narrative responsibility,” namely, the responsibility that drives us to tell, retell, and coauthor the (often unfinished) narratives of (...) loved ones. We suggest that moral dilemmas arise not only from conflicts between moral justifications but also from conflicts between narratives and human relationships. (shrink)

Parents are usually appreciated as possessing legitimate moral authority to compel children to make at least modest sacrifices in the service of widely shared values of moral decency. This essay argues that such authority justifies allowing parents to authorize a child to serve as an organ or tissue donor in certain circumstances, such as to authorize bone marrow donations to save a sibling with whom the potential donor shares a deep emotional bond. The approach explored here suggests, however, that at (...) least under some conditions, parents have legitimate authority to authorize donations forbidden by current guidelines. (shrink)

It is well known that there is a shortage of human ova for in vitro fertilization (IVF) purposes, but little attention has been paid to the way in which the demand for ova in stem-cell technologies is likely to exacerbate that shortfall and create a trade in human eggs. Because the 'Dolly' technology relies on enucleated ova in large quantities, allowing for considerable wastage, there is a serious threat that commercial and research demands for human eggs will grow exponentially from (...) the combination of these two pressures. In the absence of legal regulation in the United Kingdom, and in the context of a globalized trade in human organs, we face a 'Wild West' situation in genetic and biotechnological research that involves human ova. (shrink)

In the article charity as a factor in building a strong organizational culture is considered; examples of the charitable activities of the world’s leading companies, including health, tourism and hospitality, are demonstrated; the survey results of these industries employees understanding of the culture of philanthropy features are presented; the existence of a link between the characteristics and types of a strong organizational culture, on the one hand, and the charitable donations policy, on the other hand, is proved; recommendations for creating (...) a culture of philanthropy in a company are made. (shrink)

The Australian Federal Government has announced a two-year trial scheme to compensate living organ donors. The compensation will be the equivalent of six weeks paid leave at the rate of the national minimum wage. In this article I analyse the ethics of compensating living organ donors taking the Australian scheme as a reference point. Considering the long waiting lists for organ transplantations and the related costs on the healthcare system of treating patients waiting for an organ, the 1.3 million AUD (...) the Australian Government has committed might represent a very worthwhile investment. I argue that a scheme like the Australian one is sufficiently well designed to avoid all the ethical problems traditionally associated with attaching a monetary value to the human body or to parts of it, namely commodification, inducement, exploitation, and equality issues. Therefore, I suggest that the Australian scheme, if cost-effective, should represent a model for other countries to follow. Nonetheless, although I endorse this scheme, I will also argue that this kind of scheme raises issues of justice in regard to the distribution of organs. Thus, I propose that other policies would be needed to supplement the scheme in order to guarantee not only a higher number of organs available, but also a fair distribution. (shrink)

Cet article propose une évaluation éthique des institutions qui organisent la transplantation avec donneurs décédés, au travers du rôle qu’elles accordent à la famille survivante. Son objectif est double. Il s’agit, premièrement, de montrer que la famille possède un pouvoir de décision considérable en matière de prélèvement posthume bien que les législations soient habituellement décrites comme fondées sur le consentement ou l’opposition des personnes concernées. Deuxièmement, il s’agit de montrer que les politiques qui octroient un tel pouvoir aux familles manquent (...) à un devoir d’équité, en négligeant les intérêts à la fois des personnes concernées et des malades en attente de greffe. (shrink)

Effective altruists recommend that we give large sums to charity, but by far their more central message is that we give effectively, i.e., to whatever charities would do the most good per dollar donated. In this paper, I’ll assume that it’s not wrong not to give bigger, but will explore to what extent it may well nonetheless be wrong not to give better. The main claim I’ll argue for here is that in many cases it would be wrong of you (...) to give a sum of money to charities that do less good than others you could have given to instead, even if it would not have been wrong of you not to give the money to any charity at all. I assume that all the charities under discussion here do positive good overall, do not cause harm, do not infringe rights, etc. What makes my main claim here particularly interesting is that it is inconsistent with what appears to be a fairly common assumption in the ethics of giving, according to which if it is not wrong of you to keep some sum of money for yourself, then it is likewise not wrong of you to donate it to any particular charity you choose. Roughly: if it’s up to you whether to donate the money, it’s also up to you where to donate the money. I challenge this common assumption. (shrink)

This paper explores the idea of moral offsetting: the idea that good actions can offset bad actions in a way roughly analogous to carbon offsetting. For example, a meat eater might try to offset their consumption of meat by donating to an animal welfare charity. In this paper, I clarify the idea of moral offsetting, consider whether the leading moral theories and theories of moral worth are consistent with the possibility of moral offsetting, and consider potential benefits of moral offsetting. (...) I also compare moral offsetting to a related practice that I call ‘moral triaging’. (shrink)

Modern health data practices come with many practical uncertainties. In this paper, I argue that data subjects’ trust in the institutions and organizations that control their data, and their ability to know their own moral obligations in relation to their data, are undermined by significant uncertainties regarding the what, how, and who of mass data collection and analysis. I conclude by considering how proposals for managing situations of high uncertainty might be applied to this problem. These emphasize increasing organizational flexibility, (...) knowledge, and capacity, and reducing hazard. (shrink)

Peter Singer argues that we’re obligated to donate our entire expendable income to aid organizations. One premiss of his argument is "If it is in your power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything nearly as important, it is wrong not to do so." Singer defends this by noting that commonsense morality requires us to save a child we find drowning in a shallow pond. I argue that Singer’s Drowning Child thought experiment doesn’t justify this premiss. I offer (...) my own Drowning Children thought experiment, which should reveal that commonsense morality entails that premiss two is actually false. (shrink)

Some stories of moral exemplars motivate us to emulate their admirable attitudes and behaviors, but why do some exemplars motivate us more than others? We systematically studied how motivation to emulate is influenced by the similarity between a reader and an exemplar in social or cultural background (Relatability) and how personally costly or demanding the exemplar’s actions are (Attainability). Study 1 found that university students reported more inspiration and related feelings after reading true stories about the good deeds of a (...) recent fellow alum, compared to a famous moral exemplar from decades past. Study 2A developed a battery of short moral exemplar stories that more systematically varied Relatability and Attainability, along with a set of non-moral exemplar stories for comparison. Studies 2B and 2C examined the path from the story type to relatively low stakes altruism (donating to charity and intentions to volunteer) through perceived attainability and relatability, as well as elevation and pleasantness. Together, our studies suggest that it is primarily the relatability of the moral exemplars, not the attainability of their actions, that inspires more prosocial motivation, at least regarding acts that help others at a relatively low cost to oneself. (shrink)

Translation (French to English) of Jean-Luc Marion's "La donation en son herméneutique," originally published (in French) as chapter II of Reprise du donné (Paris: PUF, 2016).

Some people (e.g., Drs. Paul and Susan Lim) and, with them, organizations (e.g., the National Embryo Donation Center) believe that, morally speaking, the death of a frozen human embryo is a very bad thing. With such people and organizations in mind, the question to be addressed here is as follows: if one believes that the death of a frozen embryo is a very bad thing, ought, morally speaking, one prevent the death of at least one frozen embryo via embryo adoption? (...) By way of a three‐premise argument, one of which is a moral principle first introduced by Peter Singer, my answer to this question is: at least some of those who believe this ought to. (Just who the “some” are is identified in the paper.) If this is correct, then, for said people, preventing the death of a frozen embryo via embryo adoption is not a morally neutral matter; it is, instead, a morally laden one. Specifically, their intentional refusal to prevent the death of a frozen embryo via embryo adoption is, at a minimum, morally criticizable and, arguably, morally forbidden. Either way, it is, to one extent or another, a moral failing. (shrink)

Nove tehnologije omogućavaju nove postupke i prakse koji moraju da se moralno i pravno opravdaju. IVF i surogat materinstvo, pored ostalih, spadaju u takve nove prakse. Stara pravila o tome šta je dopušteno a šta mora da se zabrani ponekad nisu dovoljna, a ni analogije obično nisu dovoljne. Da bi se došlo do prihvatljive linije razdvajanja izmedju opravdanog i neopravdanog postupanja treba izvršiti adekvatnu etičku analizu tih fenomena. IVF, tehnologija oplodnje „in vitro“, iako na prvi pogled izaziva sumnjičavost, ne sadrži (...) u sebi nikakav prima facie moralni problem. IVF se može uzeti prosto kao tehnika lečenja neplodnosti ili smanjene plodnosti, što je jedan problem koji pogadja veliki broj ljudi danas. Prigovori koji se mogu staviti ne izgledaju odlučujući a koristi koje se ovom tehnikom postižu su očigledno veoma velike. Ali ta tehnika je povezana sa druga momenta, donacijom genetskog materijala i surogat materinstvom, koji povlače razne vrste pitanja koja mogu biti od velikog moralnog i pravnog značaja. U tekstu se, sa etičkog stanovišta, analiziraju najvažnija od tih pitanja i naznačava kriterijum demarkacije koji razdvaja opravdane postupke od onih koji nisu opravdani ili zahtevaju ograničenje kroz pravnu i moralnu regulaciju. (shrink)

Do biological relations ground responsibilities between biological fathers and their offspring? Few think biological relations ground either necessary or sufficient conditions for responsibility. Nevertheless, many think biological relations ground responsibility at least partially. Various scenarios, such as cases concerning the responsibilities of sperm donors, have been used to argue in favor of biological relations as partially grounding responsibilities. In this article, I seek to undermine the temptation to explain sperm donor scenarios via biological relations by appealing to an overlooked feature (...) of such scenarios. More specifically, I argue that sperm donor scenarios may be better explained by considering the unique abilities of agents involved. Appealing to unique ability does not eliminate the possibility of biological relations providing some explanation for perceived responsibilities on the part of biological fathers. However, since it is unclear exactly why biological relations are supposed to ground responsibility in the first place, and rather clear why unique ability grounds responsibility in those scenarios where it is exhibited, the burden of proof seems shifted to those advocating biological relations as grounds of responsibility to provide an explanation. Since this seems unlikely, I conclude it is best to avoid appealing to biological relations as providing grounds for responsibility. (shrink)

Cases of non-traditional family-making offer a rich seam for thinking about normative parenthood. Gamete donors are genetically related to the resulting offspring but are not thought to be normative parents. Gestational surrogates are also typically not thought to be normative parents, despite having gestated a child. Adoptive parents are typically thought to be normative parents even though they are neither genetically nor gestationally related to their child. Philosophers have paid attention to these kinds of cases. But they have not paid (...) attention to what the people who have engaged in these forms of family-making have to say about what they’re doing and, more specifically, how they answer the questions: “Who is the normative parent? And why?” Paying attention to their answers reveals two things. First, accounts of parenthood from people involved in two forms of non-traditional family-making – reproduction with gestational surrogacy and reproduction with donated eggs – are mutually inconsistent. This is not surprising. What is surprising is that the contradictory aspects of the views evince a common commitment to, as I shall put it, naturalizing parenthood. The central goal of this paper is to explain what that means, but rough idea is that in naturalizing parenthood, prospective parents aim to put the features that make someone a normative parent beyond the reach of human agency. I conclude by briefly suggesting that we should think of the grounds of normative parenthood – and the very task of theorizing about the grounds of normative parenthood – in a way that avoids the need to naturalize altogether. (shrink)

Do moral obligations include all the good that can be possibly achieved? Does every instance of the good always entail obligatory performance? Supererogation is a moral concept that tries to address this claim, by pointing out the existence of a category of morally relevant good acts that go beyond the call of duty. Paradigmatic examples of this category of acts are represented by deeds of heroism and sanctity, where the agent is sacrificing herself in order to benefit the others in (...) an exemplary way. However, supererogation is not limited to extreme and utmost cases of generosity, but it has much to do with our everyday life. From a moral point of view, making a small donation to the local children‘s hospital is considered to be morally good, but optional. (shrink)

Families play an essential role in deceased organ procurement. As the person cannot directly communicate his or her wishes regarding donation, the family is often the only source of information regarding consent or refusal. We provide a systematic description and analysis of the different roles the family can play, and actions the family can take, in the organ procurement process across different jurisdictions and consent systems. First, families can inform or update healthcare professionals about a person’s donation wishes. Second, families (...) can authorize organ procurement in the absence of deceased’s preferences and the default is not to remove organs, and oppose donation where there is no evidence of preference but the default is to presume consent; in both cases, the decision could be based on their own wishes or what they think the deceased would have wanted. Finally, families can overrule the known wishes of the deceased, which can mean preventing donation, or permitting donation when the deceased refused it. We propose a schema of 4 levels on which to map these possible family roles: no role, witness, surrogate, and full decisional authority. We conclude by mapping different jurisdictions onto this schema to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the consent system for organ donation and some important nuances about the role of families. This classificatory model aims to account for the majority of the world’s consent systems. It provides conceptual and methodological guidance that can be useful to researchers, professionals, and policymakers involved in organ procurement. (shrink)