No one has the right to say what should be done to their body after deathIn my opinion any concept of property in the human body either during life or after death is biologically inaccurate and morally wrong. The body should be regarded as on loan to the individual from the biomass, to which the cadaver will inevitably return. Development of immunosuppressive drugs has resulted in the cadaver becoming a unique and invaluable resource to those who will benefit from organ (...) donation. Faced with the biological reality, the moral error of any concept of property in the body, and the quantitative failure of voluntary organ donation, I believe that the right of control over the cadaver should be vested in the state as representative of those who may benefit from organ donation.How one regards the dead human body, the cadaver, is in part governed by one’s familiarity with it. At the present time, very few people ever see a cadaver which has not in some way been altered after death, and even fewer touch, handle, deal in any way with the dead human body. In developed countries, death itself most frequently occurs away from the home, in an institution, under the supervision of professional caregivers. For most people, ideas concerning the cadaver, its nature, the proper way to deal with it, are formed under these conditions.As a pathologist specialising in forensic pathology, for 50 years I have been at the other end of the spectrum of experience. In my daily work I have been privileged to examine the cadaver in all its stages after death from the immediate postmortem moments through all the stages of decomposition to bare bones. Working in a relatively small community, I have sometimes been charged with examining the body of someone I …. (shrink)

Crowdfunded microfinance provides financial resources to impoverished entrepreneurs across the globe based on online appeals describing the entrepreneur’s values and venture potential and is considered a key player in the ethical finance movement. Despite knowledge that the content of the appeals impacts funding success, little is known regarding the role of religious expression, which is common and consequential in socially-oriented contexts. We leverage role congruity theory to address a theoretical tension concerning the effects of religious expression on crowdfunded microfinance funding (...) outcomes. Religious expression is associated with perceptions of trustworthiness, rule-following, and ethicality—qualities that would suggest an entrepreneur would likely avoid opportunist behavior and repay the loan. However, appeals to a higher power may be incongruent with the role of an entrepreneur to the extent that such expression communicates a lack of proactiveness and self-reliance. We use a two-study design to help resolve this tension. Our field study incorporating 253,130 loans from Kiva reveals that religious expression negatively influences funding, particularly for women. Our experiment using 1,795 individual loan assessments shows that the negative influence of religious expression is attenuated when individual lenders exhibit higher levels of religiosity. Post hoc analysis suggests campaigns can mitigate the negative impact of religious expression by being careful to also include aspects highlighting an entrepreneurial orientation. Overall, our work extends prior research suggesting that language tied to ethical or virtuous behaviors is generally not rewarded by lenders as using such language may make the applicant appear inconsistent with role of a stereotypical entrepreneur. (shrink)

Citing the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal, the Leo Frank murder trial, and other cases, author William Simon takes a fresh look at the ethics of lawyering.

This research applies the impression management theory of exemplification in an accounting study by identifying and measuring differences in both auditor and public perceptions of exemplary behaviors. The auditors were divided into two groups, one of which reported self-perceptions (A-S) while the other group reported their perceptions of a typical auditor (A-O). There were two separate public groups, which gave their perceptions of a typical auditor and were divided based on their levels of accounting sophistication. The more sophisticated public group (...) was comprised of bank loan officers (LO) while the less sophisticated public group consisted of investment club members (IC). Comparisons were made on 30 behaviors contained in the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct, which served as the basis for the research instrument. Profile analysis, a special form of MANOVA technique, was used to analyze the results. A-S perceptions were the highest of the four treatment levels and were significantly higher (i.e., more exemplary) than the perceptions of both the A-O and LO groups. The more sophisticated user group (LO) provided the lowest perceptions of the four treatment levels. For at least four of the six measures, the LO treatment group perceived the typical auditor to be less exemplary than both the IC and A-O treatments. There were no differences in perceptions between the A-O group and IC. Additional analysis revealed that auditors overrated the degree to which the public relied on financial statements. However, both public groups reported a reasonably high level of reliance on financial statements when making decisions. (shrink)

Objectives—To evaluate a departmental computer system.Design—a. Direct comparison of the time taken to use a manual system with the time taken to use a computer system for lung function evaluation, loan of equipment and production of correspondence. b. Analysis of the accuracy of data capture before and after the introduction of the computer system. c. Analysis of the comparative running costs of the manual and computer systems.Setting—Within a department of respiratory medicine serving a hospital of 1323 beds.Main Outcome Measures—a. Time (...) taken to perform functions with the assistance of computerised methods, in comparison to the manual method used alone. b. Accuracy of data capture. c. Relative running costs.Results—a. The computer system was significantly faster than the manual system for lung function evaluation, loan of equipment, and checking for overdue equipment. The production of correspondence was slightly slower with the computer. b. All outpatient episodes, but only 43 of 65 of inpatient episodes, were captured. Lung function and managerial report data were accurate using both manual and computerised methods. The manual system for equipment loans was inefficient, and use of the computer resulted in the recovery of 221 nebulisers. c. Development costs for 1988–1990 were high. Only £1200 to £1845 per year was recovered directly from staff time saved by the computer but larger savings resulted from changes in work practice. After 10 years the projected deficit is £10 000 per annum in running costs.Conclusions—In comparison with the manual methods, the computer system has shown significant advantages which provide accurate information, with significant favourable effects on working practices. In evaluating computer systems used in clinical practice it is essential to ensure that the projected work practice benefits are achieved without unacceptable costs in staff time, inaccurate data and high financial outlay. (shrink)

Objectives—To evaluate a departmental computer system.Design—a. Direct comparison of the time taken to use a manual system with the time taken to use a computer system for lung function evaluation, loan of equipment and production of correspondence. b. Analysis of the accuracy of data capture before and after the introduction of the computer system. c. Analysis of the comparative running costs of the manual and computer systems.Setting—Within a department of respiratory medicine serving a hospital of 1323 beds.Main Outcome Measures—a. Time (...) taken to perform functions with the assistance of computerised methods, in comparison to the manual method used alone. b. Accuracy of data capture. c. Relative running costs.Results—a. The computer system (CS) was significantly faster than the manual system (MS) for lung function evaluation (CS=7.63 min/test, MS=12.25 min/test), loan of equipment (CS=0.40 min/loan, MS=2.07 min/loan), and checking for overdue equipment (CS=0.49 s/record, MS=9 s/record). The production of correspondence was slightly slower with the computer (CS=9.30 min/letter, MS=8.54 min/letter). b. All outpatient episodes, but only 43 of 65 (66%) of inpatient episodes, were captured. Lung function and managerial report data were accurate using both manual and computerised methods. The manual system for equipment loans was inefficient, and use of the computer resulted in the recovery of 221 nebulisers. c. Development costs for 1988–1990 were high (£72 178). Only £1200 to £1845 per year was recovered directly from staff time saved by the computer but larger savings resulted from changes in work practice (£4049–4765). After 10 years the projected deficit is £10 000 per annum in running costs.Conclusions—In comparison with the manual methods, the computer system has shown significant advantages which provide accurate information, with significant favourable effects on working practices. In evaluating computer systems used in clinical practice it is essential to ensure that the projected work practice benefits are achieved without unacceptable costs in staff time, inaccurate data and high financial outlay. (shrink)

This article aims to read feminist new materialisms (Barad), together with ‘postulated’ linguistic or cultural primacy of Queer Theory (Butler), to show how both are engaged in similar critical-ethical endeavours. The central argument is that the criticism of Barad and new materialisms misses Butler’s materialistic insights due to a narrow interpretation of Butler's alleged social-constructivist position. There is, therefore, a specific focus on where they both make similar ethical appeals. Moreover, the article relies on Adorno's negative dialectic to highlight an (...) interpretation of Barad and Butler as being part of the same dialectical movement, in which materialism and idealism fluctuate in their mutual criticisms, thus continuing the procession towards 'new knowledge' and emancipation, or freedom, through their motions back and forth. (shrink)

When new laws are being considered to regulate emerging technologies, it is common to engage in a formal consultation process to assess community views, especially in sensitive areas where views may differ widely. However, it is not clear how we should assess the responses to such consultation. If the respondents with the most extreme views, at either end of the political or ethical spectrum, speak in large numbers or strong language, their submissions surely cannot be added up and given the (...) weight of the majority in determining the course of future action. The ‘silent majority’ of the community may not participate in the consultation process at all. Even if they do participate more fully, it will often not be possible to find a compromise solution that offers something to everyone.Professor Charlesworth considered these issues in his ground-breaking book, Bioethics in a Liberal Society. He said that there are some issues on which community consensus on a core set of values will not be possible. To move forward, a liberal society must accept that there will be a range of views but however discordant those views appear to be, it may still be possible to identify matters on which there is agreement. Those matters may then form the basis of a policy that is widely accepted, even if it is not what the individual participants would have chosen initially. This approach may be illustrated by examining recent community consultation in Australia concerning research involving human embryos. (shrink)

It is commonly said that patients have no right to demand that treatment must be continued when medical carers believe it is “futile” to continue it. There are certainly many judicial statements to this effect, some of which are quoted in this paper. However, there are various ways that courts can intervene, even if they do not order directly that treatment must be provided or continued. First, patients or their representatives may argue the process of decision making was unfair or (...) that they were unfairly discriminated against when treatment has been refused. To date, these arguments have met with limited success so far as enabling patients to have treatment provided or continued against medical advice. More recently, however, some patients have challenged the lawfulness of a proposed treatment regime by advancing human rights arguments, based in turn on a broader aspect of patients’ “best interests” than best medical interests. (shrink)

It is commonly said that patients have no right to demand that treatment must be continued when medical carers believe it is “futile” to continue it. There are certainly many judicial statements to this effect, some of which are quoted in this paper. However, there are various ways that courts can intervene, even if they do not order directly that treatment must be provided or continued. First, patients or their representatives may argue the process of decision making was unfair or (...) that they were unfairly discriminated against when treatment has been refused. To date, these arguments have met with limited success so far as enabling patients to have treatment provided or continued against medical advice. More recently, however, some patients have challenged the lawfulness of a proposed treatment regime by advancing human rights arguments, based in turn on a broader aspect of patients’ “best interests” than best medical interests. (shrink)

This paper outlines the current common law principles that protect people’s interests in their bodies, excised body parts and tissue without conferring the rights of full legal ownership. It does not include the recent statutory amendments in jurisdictions such as New South Wales and the United Kingdom. It argues that at common law, people do not own their own bodies or excised bodily material. People can authorise the removal of their bodily material and its use, either during life or after (...) their death, for medical or scientific purposes. Researchers who acquire human bodies, body parts or tissue pursuant to such an authority have a right to possess and use them according to the authorisation they have been given, but their rights fall short of full ownership because they are limited in the way that they can use the material. The legal rights of researchers who develop intellectual property and biological products from excised human tissue can be adequately protected by existing common law principles without the need for a new legal principle that people own body parts and tissue removed from their bodies. (shrink)

This paper describes a half-day class for 200 first year medical students. It is designed like a conference and is intended to raise students’ awareness of legal issues that arise in everyday practice. It uses the Problem Based Learning approach of event-focus, student-guided learning and student teachers. There are three parts.

Church leaders often express views on political issues and there is no objection to them doing so. However, when they direct members of Parliament on how they should vote on particular issues and intervene in litigation between private individuals, they contravene the long accepted principle of separation between church and state. That principle was formally acknowledged by Pope Benedict XVI in his most recent Encyclical Letter. The author will give examples of cases in which she believes the Roman Catholic Church (...) has overstepped the mark in intervening in the business of the state. (shrink)

The approach of the courts when considering proprietary interests in human bodily material has been pragmatic and piecemeal. The general principle was initially that such material is not legally ‘property’ that can be ‘owned’, but courts have recognised many exceptions. In determining disputes between individuals in particular cases, they have stated principles that are often inconsistent with those stated in other cases with different facts. Later judges have been constrained by these decisions, especially when made at appellate level. They can (...) distinguish the facts of one case from another to achieve a different outcome, but they cannot state new principles to be applied more widely to promote consistency. This requires the will of Parliament and legislation to introduce new principles. Experience to date suggests that such legislation will need to be wide-ranging and complex, with different principles for different circumstances. There will not be one area of law that answers all the issues that arise. (shrink)

This article analyses the recent controversy over single and lesbian women’s right to access reproductive technology. It focuses on the McBain case in relation to the Sex Discrimination Act. As well, it attempts to bring voices that have been ignored into the debate, and reflect on the values that they express.

The actions of pregnant women can cause harm to their future children. However, even if the possible harm is serious and likely to occur, the law will generally not intervene. A pregnant woman is an autonomous person who is entitled to make her own decisions. A fetus in-utero has no legal right to protection. In striking contrast, the child, if born alive, may sue for injury in-utero; and the child is entitled to be protected by being removed from her parents (...) if necessary for her protection. Indeed, there is a legal obligation for health professionals to report suspected harm, and for authorities to protect the child's wellbeing. We ask whether such contradictory responses are justified. Should the law intervene where a pregnant woman's actions risk serious and preventable fetal injury? The argument for legal intervention to protect a fetus is sometimes linked to the concept of ‘fetal personhood’ and the moral status of the fetus. In this article we will suggest that even if the fetus is not regarded as a separate person, and does not have the legal or moral status of a child, indeed, even if the fetus is regarded as having no legal or moral status, there is an ethical and legal case for intervening to prevent serious harm to a future child. We examine the arguments for and against intervention on behalf of the future child, drawing on the example of excessive maternal alcohol intake. (shrink)

The development of transplantation technology increasingly places before society a multitude of diverse, complex ethical and legal problems. The subject is the more complex because of the various divergent interests involved. There are the interests of the donor of organs, who has a right to protection of his legal position, and those of the patient in need of an often lifesaving organ. There are also the interests of the donor’s relatives, after his death, and those of the transplantation surgeons. The (...) international dimension of transplantation technology makes the picture even more complicated. Though this article is devoted to the European situation, the problems are similar all over the world. (shrink)

The development of transplantation technology increasingly places before society a multitude of diverse, complex ethical and legal problems. The subject is the more complex because of the various divergent interests involved. There are the interests of the donor of organs, who has a right to protection of his legal position, and those of the patient in need of an often lifesaving organ. There are also the interests of the donor’s relatives, after his death, and those of the transplantation surgeons. The (...) international dimension of transplantation technology makes the picture even more complicated. Though this article is devoted to the European situation, the problems are similar all over the world. (shrink)

This study described the relationships between academic class and student moral sensitivity and reasoning and between curriculum design components for ethics education and student moral sensitivity and reasoning. The data were collected from freshman (n = 506) and senior students (n = 440) in eight baccalaureate nursing programs in South Korea by survey; the survey consisted of the Korean Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and the Korean Defining Issues Test. The results showed that moral sensitivity scores in patient-oriented care and conflict were (...) higher in senior students than in freshman students. Furthermore, more hours of ethics content were associated with higher principled thinking scores of senior students. Nursing education in South Korea may have an impact on developing student moral sensitivity. Planned ethics content in nursing curricula is necessary to improve moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students. (shrink)

In the wake of three high-profile judicial decisions concerning the use of human biological materials, the editors of this collection felt in 2011 that there was a need for detailed scholarly exploration of the ethical and legal implications of these decisions. For centuries, it seemed that in Australia and England and Wales, individuals did not have any proprietary interests in their excised tissue. Others might acquire such interests, but there had been no clear decision on the rights or otherwise of (...) the persons from whom the tissue was obtained. In 2009, however, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales recognised a limited exception to this position in Jonathan Yearworth and others v North Bristol NHS Trust . In that case, the Court held that the appellants, who had deposited semen samples for freezing before they undertook treatment for cancer, had “for the purposes of a claim in negligence … ownership of the sperm which they had ejaculated”. One year later, the Supreme Court of Queensland, Australia, took a similarly property-based approach to determining how a semen sample stored shortly before death should be dealt in Bazley v Wesley Monash IVF . According to that court, the co-executors of the estate had sufficient proprietary interests in the semen to legally demand its return from the laboratory where it was held. In 2011, the New South Wales Supreme Court similarly found that the widow of a recently deceased man had a right to possession of his semen in Joceyln Edwards; Re the estate of the late Mark Edwards .In the editors’ view, these decisions signalled a turning point in the Anglo-Australian jurisprudence in this area, taking the law a step beyond the decisions of the late 20th century such as R v Kelly , in which possessory rights were found …. (shrink)

Is the procreation asymmetry intuitively supported? According to a recent article in this journal, an experimental study suggests the opposite. Dean Spears (2020) claims that nearly three-quarters of participants report that there is a reason to create a person just because that person’s life would be happy. In reply, I argue that various confounding factors render the study internally invalid. More generally, I show how one might come to adopt the procreation asymmetry for the wrong reasons by misinterpreting one’s intuitions.

Philosophers ask just whose expression, if anyone’s, we hear in lyric poetry. Walton provides a novel possibility: it’s the reader who “uses” the poem (just as a speech giver uses a speech) who makes the language expressive. But worries arise once we consider poems in particular social or political settings, those which require a strong self-other distinction, or those with expressions that should not be disassociated from the subjects whose experience they draw from. One way to meet this challenge is (...) to consider the poem expressive of a plural subject, which frees us from looking for a particular individual whose voice we hear in the work, whether she be fictional or actual. Some lyrics give voice to a group whose experience is attended to in the work. This may be done through a posited fictional speaker, but the ontology of the speaker is shown to be less important. Attending to a group whose concerns are voiced allows us to explain how poems can manage to address our-worldly concerns even when lacking actual persons whose expressions we encounter in the poems. (shrink)

Adolescent decisions, especially in novel contexts, are often guided by affective evaluations rather than knowledge of the risks and probabilities of different outcomes. In this study, we used the affect-driven exploration model to illustrate how affective evaluations can play a critical role in driving early use of cigarettes, as well as the adaptive function of the resulting experiential learning in informing future affect and cigarette use. We analyzed five waves of data collected from a large, diverse community sample of adolescents (...) who were followed from early to late adolescence during years 2004–2010 to model trajectories of positive affect and risk perceptions and examined the associations of these trajectories with their self-reported cigarette use and dependence symptoms. Consistent with the ADE model, early initiators reported higher levels of positive affect at baseline, which we argue may have led them to try cigarettes. Notably, most early initiators reported a decline in positive affect over time, suggesting an experience-based shift in affective evaluations associated with cigarette use. Risk perceptions associated with cigarette use did not emerge as a significant predictor of cigarette use or subsequent dependence. Therefore, for deterring adolescent cigarette use, efforts to influence affect may be more effective than directly influencing risk perceptions. Despite the affective basis for initiating cigarette use, few adolescents engaged in early use or developed symptoms of dependence. Majority of those who engaged in early cigarette use showed a decline in positive affect, with corresponding increase in risk perceptions over time. Some early users may indeed continue to engage in cigarette use, but this is likely driven by the addictive properties of the drug. Overall these findings challenge the popular stereotype of impulsive and emotionally reactive behaviors during adolescence, and suggest a more nuanced interpretation of adolescent risk behavior. (shrink)

The Shape of Thought: How Mental Adaptations Evolve presents a road map for an evolutionary psychology of the twenty-first century. It brings together theory from biology and cognitive science to show how the brain can be composed of specialized adaptations, and yet also an organ of plasticity. Although mental adaptations have typically been seen as monolithic, hard-wired components frozen in the evolutionary past, The Shape of Thought presents a new view of mental adaptations as diverse and variable, with distinct functions (...) and evolutionary histories that shape how they develop, what information they use, and what they do with that information. The book describes how advances in evolutionary developmental biology can be applied to the brain by focusing on the design of the developmental systems that build it. Crucially, developmental systems can be plastic, designed by the process of natural selection to build adaptive phenotypes using the rich information available in our social and physical environments. This approach bridges the long-standing divide between "nativist" approaches to development, based on innateness, and "empiricist" approaches, based on learning. It shows how a view of humans as a flexible, culturally-dependent species is compatible with a complexly specialized brain, and how the nature of our flexibility can be better understood by confronting the evolved design of the organ on which that flexibility depends. (shrink)

The role of the courts in ‘communicating’ with those affected by their decisions is contentious. Some legal commentators maintain that courts and legislators are able to communicate decisions effectively and that attempts to ‘dumb down’ the law will not make such decisions more accessible to doctors and other professionals. Justice Michael Kirby, on the other hand, seems to share the present author's view that judges could improve their communication of their decisions to a wider audience: ‘In future, it seems inevitable (...) that proceedings [of the High Court] will be broadcast live.Maybe one of the judges will explain the decisions of the court in simple terms as they are handed down… Adaptation to new ways and values is part of the genius of our law, although some of its practitioners need to be dragged kicking and screaming to accomplish the changes’. (shrink)

This paper offers a unified explanation for the procreation asymmetry and the non-identity thesis – two of the most intractable puzzles in population ethics. According to the procreation asymmetry, there are moral reasons not to create lives that are not worth living but no moral reasons to create lives that are worth living. I explain the procreation asymmetry by arguing that there are moral reasons to prevent the bad, but no moral reasons to promote the good. Various explanations for the (...) procreation asymmetry have failed to explain the non-identity thesis: if one could create a person with a good life or a different person with a better life, one has a moral reason to create the better life. I argue that reflections on the misfortune of unfulfilled potential allow us to circumvent the non-identity problem. (shrink)