In some views, philosophy’s glory days in bioethics are over. While philosophers were especially important in the early days of the field, so the argument goes, the majority of the work in bioethics today involves the “simple” application of existing philosophical principles or concepts, as well as empirical work in bioethics. Here, we address this view head on and ask: What is the role of philosophy in bioethics today? This paper has three specific aims: (1) to respond to skeptics and (...) make the case that philosophy and philosophers still have a very important and meaningful role to play in contemporary bioethics, (2) to discuss some of the current challenges to the meaningful integration of philosophy and bioethics, and (3) to make suggestions for what needs to happen in order for the two fields to stay richly connected. We outline how bioethics center directors, funders, and philosopher bioethicists can help. (shrink)

Recent debates over the use of sham surgery as a control for studies of fetal tissue transplantation for Parkinson’s disease have focused primarily on rival interpretations of the US federal regulations governing human-subjects research. Using the core ethical and methodological considerations that underwrite the equipoise requirement, we nd strong prima facie reasons against using sham surgery as a control in studies of cellular-based therapies for Parkinson’s disease and more broadly in clinical research. Additionally, we believe that these reasons can be (...) generalized to apply to the use of other placebo controls that carry signi cant risks of positive harms in and of themselves. As a result, our arguments are centrally relevant to the emerging drive to subject therapies with a surgical component to the same rigorous standards of evaluation as those governing the approval of new pharmaceuticals. (shrink)

To cite this Article: , 'Two Dogmas of Research Ethics and the Integrative Approach to Human-Subjects Research', Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 32:2, 99 - 116 To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/03605310701255727 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03605310701255727..

in Angelique M. Rietsma and Jonathan D. Moreno eds., Ethical Guidelines for Innovative Surgery. (Hagerstown, MD: University Publishing Group) 19-52. [PDF].

An Aristotelian conception of practical ethics can be derived from the account of practical reasoning that Aristotle articulates in his Rhetoric and this has important implications for the way we understand the nature and limits of practical ethics. An important feature of this conception of practical ethics is its responsiveness to the complex ways in which agents form and maintain moral commitments, and this has important implications for the debate concerning methods of ethics in applied ethics. In particular, this feature (...) enables us to understand casuistry, narrative, and principlism as mutually supportive modes of moral inquiry, rather than divergent and mutually exclusive methods of ethics. As a result, an Aristotelian conception of practical ethics clears the conceptual common ground upon which practical ethicists can forge a stable and realistic self-understanding. (shrink)

Research ethics is often said to have been born of scandal. Whether or not this is true of the field in general, it does seem to be the case for much of the literature on the ethics of international research. But in When Experiments Travel: Clinical Trials and the Global Search for Human Subjects, the anthropologist Adriana Petryna sets out to portray not scandal, but the routine offshoring of clinical trials. Through gripping interviews and detailed case studies, she follows the (...) lifecycle of international research, tracing its connections to health systems, legal systems, and entitlement programs. She also provides a glimpse into the complex social relations on which the research process depends, allowing her reader to see the way the labor is divided, the responsibilities delegated, the risks shifted, and decisions with far-reaching social consequences shaped by a spectrum of market, regulatory, and cultural influences. (shrink)