This paper follows on from a brief debate about the role of conscientious objection in healthcare, where the issue arose as to whether conscientious objection is (or can) be a tool of resistance against systemic injustice. The paper contributes to this debate by highlighting that some authors generally opposed to conscientious objection in healthcare have shown some support to this idea. Perhaps if there is one area in which all can agree, it is that in healthcare conscientious objection should be (...) allowed so as to prevent cases of systemic injustice. (shrink)

Why do we persist in the relentless pursuit of artificial nourishment and other treatments to maintain a permanently unconscious existence? In facing the future, if not the present world-wide reality of a huge number of persistent vegetative state (PVS) patients, will they be treated because of our ethical commitment to their humanity, or because of an ethical paralysis in the face of biotechnical progress? The PVS patient is cut off from the normal patterns of human connection and communication, with a (...) life unlike other forms of human existence. Why the struggle to justify ending a life which, it is said, has suffered an irreversible loss of the content of consciousness? Elsewhere, the authors have addressed the ethical controversies and confusion engendered by ambiguous terminology, misuse of medical facts and the differing interpretations of what constitutes 'effective' treatment: in particular, the issue of whether in fact artificial nutrition and hydration is a medical treatment, or simply part of the obligatory care owed to all patients, permanently unconscious or not. In this paper, we intend to argue that recent analyses of medical futility, its meaning and ethical implications, despite an absence of public consensus, permit some tentative re-evaluation of our ethical obligations to the PVS patient. (shrink)

The possibility of consciousness in human brain organoids is sometimes viewed as determinative in terms of the moral status such entities possess, and, in turn, in terms of the research protections such entities are due. This commonsense view aligns with a prominent stance in neurology and neuroscience that consciousness admits of degrees. My paper outlines these views and provides an argument for why this picture of correlating degrees of consciousness with moral status and research protections is mistaken. I then provide (...) an alternative account of the correlation between moral status and consciousness, and consider the epistemic ramifications for research protections of this account. (shrink)

Libet's experiments, supported by a strict one-to-one identity thesis between brain events and mental events, have prompted the conclusion that physical events precede the mental events to which they correspond. We examine this claim and conclude that it is suspect for several reasons. First, there is a dual assumption that an intention is the kind of thing that causes an action and that can be accurately introspected. Second, there is a real problem with the method of timing the mental events (...) concerned given that Libet himself has found the reports of subjects to be unreliable in this regard. Third, there is a suspect assumption that there are such things as timable and locatable mental and brain events accompanying and causing human behaviour. For all these reasons we reject the claim that physical events are prior to and explain mental events. (shrink)

Libet's experiments, supported by a strict one-to-one identity thesis between brain events and mental events, have prompted the conclusion that physical events precede the mental events to which they correspond. We examine this claim and conclude that it is suspect for several reasons. First, there is a dual assumption that an intention is the kind of thing that causes an action and that can be accurately introspected. Second, there is a real problem with the method of timing the mental events (...) concerned given that Libet himself has found the reports of subjects to be unreliable in this regard. Third, there is a suspect assumption that there are such things as timable and locatable mental and brain events accompanying and causing human behaviour. For all these reasons we reject the claim that physical events are prior to and explain mental events. (shrink)

The idea that there is an inherent incentive in moral judgment or, in Classical terms, that there is an essential relationship between virtue and well?being is sharply criticized in contemporary moral theory. The associated theses that there is a way of living which is objectively good for human beings and that living that way is part of understanding moral truth are equally problematic. The Aristotelian argument proceeded via the premise that a human being was a rational social being. The present (...) reworking of that thesis builds on the internal connection between rationality and concept use. Moral judgment is linked to the grasp of moral concepts and thereby to an appreciation of how it is with other persons. The judgment that another person instances a morally relevant ascription is grounded on an empathic grasp of how it is with that person and thus tied to the thought that one ought to act in such and such a way or. in other words, to a disposition to act. Because the empathically grasped content of moral concepts is related to a number of mental ascriptions and reactive attitudes, the grasp of that content is interwoven deeply in the structure of human mental life and any attempt systematically to devalue or undermine it is threatening to one's mental integrity as a rational social being. Thus there is a deep link between moral sense or the disposition to act morally and an adequately grounded conception of human well?being. (shrink)

Alongside a revival of interest in Thomism in philosophy, scholars have realised its relevance when addressing certain contemporary issues in bioethics. This book offers a rigorous interpretation of Aquinas's metaphysics and ethical thought, and highlights its significance to questions in bioethics. Jason T. Eberl applies Aquinas’s views on the seminal topics of human nature and morality to key questions in bioethics at the margins of human life – questions which are currently contested in the academia, politics and the media such (...) as: When does a human person’s life begin? How should we define and clinically determine a person’s death? Is abortion ever morally permissible? How should we resolve the conflict between the potential benefits of embryonic stem cell research and the lives of human embryos? Does cloning involve a misuse of human ingenuity and technology? What forms of treatment are appropriate for irreversibly comatose patients? How should we care for patients who experience unbearable suffering as they approach the end of life? _Thomistic Principles and Bioethics_ presents a significant philosophical viewpoint which will motivate further dialogue amongst religious and secular arenas of inquiry concerning such complex issues of both individual and public concern. (shrink)

This paper explores early Australasian philosophy in some detail. Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, but it also reflected the revival of interest in Hegel through the work of ‘absolute idealists’ such as T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Henry Jones. A number of the early New Zealand philosophers were also educated in the idealist tradition (...) and were influential in their communities, but produced relatively little. In Australia, materialism gained prominence through the work of John Anderson, who arrived in Australia in 1927, and continues to be influential. John Anderson had been a student of Henry Jones, who might therefore be said to have influenced both main strands of Australian philosophical thought. (shrink)

Two problems are considered here. One relates to who has moral status, and the other relates to who has moral responsibility. The criteria for mattering morally have long been disputed, and many humans and nonhuman animals have been considered “marginal cases,” on the contested edges of moral considerability and concern. The marginalization of humans and other species is frequently the pretext for denying their rights, including the rights to health care, to reproductive freedom, and to bodily autonomy. There is broad (...) agreement across cultural and philosophical traditions about the capacities and responsibilities of moral agents. I propose an inclusive and expansive way of thinking about moral status, situating it not in the characteristics or capacities of individuals, but in the responsibilities and obligations of moral agents. Moral agents, under this view, are not privileged or entitled to special treatment but rather have responsibilities. I approach this by considering some African communitarian conceptions of moral status and moral agency. I propose that moral agency can also be more expansive and include not just individual moral agents but collective entities that have some of the traits of moral agents: power, freedom, and the capacity to recognize and act on the demands of morality and acknowledge and respect the rights of others. Expanding who and what is a moral agent correspondingly extends moral responsibility for respecting rights and fostering the conditions for the health and well-being of humans and animals onto the collective entities who uniquely have the capacity to attend to global-scale health threats such as pandemics and human-caused climate change. (shrink)