Some health-care institutions have ethics committees. The experience of the Ethical Issues Committee at the Royal College of Physicians is described. Ethics committees in institutions may be reactive or creative, must determine an agenda and must deal with dissent.

The effective collection and management of personal data of rapidly migrating populations is important for ensuring adequate healthcare and monitoring of a displaced peoples’ health status. With developments in ICT data sharing capabilities, electronic personal health records (ePHRs) are increasingly replacing less transportable paper records. ePHRs offer further advantages of improving accuracy and completeness of information and seem tailored for rapidly displaced and mobile populations. Various emerging initiatives in Europe are seeking to develop migrant‐centric ePHR responses. This paper highlights their (...) importance and benefits, but also identifies a number of significant ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI) and challenges to their design and implementation, regarding (1) the kind of information that should be stored, (2) who should have access to information, and (3) potential misuse of information. These challenges need to be urgently addressed to make possible the beneficial use of ePHRs for vulnerable migrants in Europe. (shrink)

The achievement of Immanuel Kant lies in demonstrating the law-giving power of the human intellect in the metaphysical basis of human cognition and in defence of human freedom. The power of reason was his response to the mechanical view of nature and scepticism in morals, aesthetics and religion. While reason extended over theory and practice, it was, he insisted, one reason: a unity. I advocate the unity of reason as key to understanding Kant’s philosophical project. Given his huge output, this (...) is an inevitably incomplete ambition. After an introductory chapter, comes an explication of the key role of the maxim followed by proposing a three-fold understanding of reason itself with its ideas and postulates. These extend our theoretical and practical knowledge in reason’s differing interests, albeit with conceptual difficulties in motivation and respect. Despite different faculties, theoretical and practical reason cannot conflict for there are not two reasons. One must have primacy which is shown to be the practical. The latter doctrine has implications for Kant’s rational theology and his broader world view. Morality’s supreme principle, a product of universalised reason, highlights the destiny of humankind and leads to a moral faith unique to humans. By virtue of reason, we have the will to realise our final end. The justification of reason’s unity leads to the regulative idea of a highest intelligence as a heuristic. Kant’s moral philosophy culminates in the concept of the highest good as the final end of human life. I discuss its secular and religious interpretations before concluding that, for Kant, we belong not only in the world of nature but in a noumenal world in which God and a future life may be the hope of our finite reason. (shrink)