Complementary and alternative medicine is becoming increasingly popular in western countries, with estimates of CAM usage as high as 40%. This has prompted a change of attitude of the medical establishment: the initial dismissal of CAM is being replaced by a drive to integrate CAM into the mainstream. Two possible explanations for this integration thrust are considered. Firstly, integration could be motivated largely by cognitive interest in CAM. Secondly, integration could be mainly power-driven, aimed at controlling the alternative movement and (...) exploiting its capacity to make money. The second explanation seems more plausible, and is supported by data showing the paucity of research on CAM. The medical establishment does not sufficiently appreciate the challenge CAM poses, and does not consider its scientific appraisal to be a high priority. Instead, the allopathic community seems preoccupied with the opportunistic desire to protect its authority and social status. Such a discourse can become dogmatic, reluctant to revise critically the ‘accepted’ body of knowledge. Popper's critical rationalism could help to undercut dogmatism and encourage a critical, open-minded orientation of medical science. (shrink)

(2011). Mindfulness: diverse perspectives on its meaning, origins, and multiple applications at the intersection of science and dharma. Contemporary Buddhism: Vol. 12, Mindfulness: diverse perspectives on its meaning, origins, and multiple applications at the intersection of science and dharma, pp. 1-18. doi: 10.1080/14639947.2011.564811.

Medical humanities have a unique role to play in combating biopiracy. This argument is offered both as a response to contemporary concerns about the ‘value’ and ‘impact’ of the arts and humanities and as a contribution to ongoing legal, political, and ethical debates regarding the status and protection of medical heritage. Medical humanities can contribute to the documentation and safeguarding of a nation or people’s medical heritage, understood as a form of intangible cultural heritage. In so doing it can fulfill (...) a unique service in protecting indigenous cultural heritage which potentially makes it of enormous economic benefit to national governments. I use the Indian Traditional Knowledge Digital Library as a case study of the value of medical humanities in challenging biopiracy. If my argument holds, then the value of medical humanities to current intellectual property debates can be demonstrated, and its pertinence to legal and economic interests made clear. However, there are some dangers in this strategy, and my paper closes with a discussion of them. (shrink)

Abstract Havi Carel has recently argued that one can be ill and happy. An ill person can ?positively respond? to illness by cultivating ?adaptability? and ?creativity?. I propose that Carel's claim can be augmented by connecting it with virtue ethics. The positive responses which Carel describes are best understood as the cultivation of virtues, and this adds a significant moral aspect to coping with illness. I then defend this claim against two sets of objections and conclude that interpreting Carel's phenomenology (...) of illness within a virtue-ethical framework enriches our understanding of how illness can be edifying. (shrink)

Scientific standards cannot be separated from the practice of science and their use presupposes immersion in this practice. The demand to base political action on scientific standards therefore leads to elitism. Democratic relativism, on the other hand, demands equal rights for all traditions or, conversely, a separation between the state and any one of the traditions it contains; for example, it demands the separation of state and science, state and humanitarianism, state and Christianity. Democratic relativism defends the rights of people (...) to live as they see fit; it is also a most efficient means of probing traditions (such as ?scientific? medicine) that happen to be in the centre of attention: it has ethical as well as epistemological advantages. (shrink)