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97The social impacts of nanotechnology: An ethical and political analysis (review)Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 6 (1): 13-23. 2009.This paper attempts some predictions about the social consequences of nanotechnology and the ethical issues they raise. I set out four features of nanotechnology that are likely to be important in determining its impact and argue that nanotechnology will have significant social impacts in—at least—the areas of health and medicine, the balance of power between citizens and governments, and the balance of power between citizens and corporations. More importantly, responding to the challenge of nan…Read more
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74A not-so-new eugenics: Harris and Savulescu on human enhancementAsian Bioethics Review 2 (4): 288-307. 2010.John Harris and Julian Savulescu, leading figures in the "new" eugenics, argue that parents are morally obligated to use genetic and other technologies to enhance their children. But the argument they give leads to conclusions even more radical than they acknowledge. Ultimately, the world it would lead to is not all that different from that championed by eugenicists one hundred years ago.
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118Should Human Beings Have Sex? Sexual Dimorphism and Human EnhancementAmerican Journal of Bioethics 10 (7): 3-12. 2010.Since the first sex reassignment operations were performed, individual sex has come to be, to some extent at least, a technological artifact. The existence of sperm sorting technology, and of prenatal determination of fetal sex via ultrasound along with the option of termination, means that we now have the power to choose the sex of our children. An influential contemporary line of thought about medical ethics suggests that we should use technology to serve the welfare of individuals and to remo…Read more
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1386Procreative Beneficence, Obligation, and EugenicsGenomics, Society and Policy 3 (3): 43-59. 2007.The argument of Julian Savulescu’s 2001 paper, “Procreative Beneficence: Why We Should Select the Best Children” is flawed in a number of respects. Savulescu confuses reasons with obligations and equivocates between the claim that parents have some reason to want the best for their children and the more radical claim that they are morally obligated to attempt to produce the best child possible. Savulescu offers a prima facie implausible account of parental obligation, as even the best parents ty…Read more
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30Martial and Moral Courage in Teleoperated Warfare: A Commentary on KirkpatrickJournal of Military Ethics 14 (3-4): 220-227. 2015.ABSTRACTJesse Kirkpatrick's ‘Drones and the Martial Virtue Courage’ constitutes the most thorough attempt to date to show that the operators of remotely piloted aircraft can display martial courage and therefore that it may sometimes be appropriate to award them military honours. I argue that while Kirkpatrick's account usefully draws our attention to the risks faced by drone operators and to the possibility that courage may be required to face these risks, he is much less successful in establis…Read more
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82Human enhancement and sexual dimorphismBioethics 26 (9): 464-475. 2011.I argue that the existence of sexual dimorphism poses a profound challenge to those philosophers who wish to deny the moral significance of the idea of ‘normal human capacities’ in debates about the ethics of human enhancement. The biological sex of a child will make a much greater difference to their life prospects than many of the genetic variations that the philosophical and bioethical literature has previously been concerned with. It seems, then, that bioethicists should have something to sa…Read more
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153'Trust us... we're doctors': Science, media, and ethics in the Hwang stem cell controversyJournal of Communication Research 43 (1): 5-24. 2006.When doubts were first raised about the veracity of the dramatic advances in stem cell research announced by Professor Hwang Woo-Suk, a significant minority response was to question the qualifications of journalists to investigate the matter. In this paper I examine the contemporary relationships between science, scientists, the public, and the media. In the modern context the progress of science often relies on the media to mobilise public support for research and also for the purpose of co…Read more
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392Defending deaf culture: The case of cochlear implantsJournal of Political Philosophy 13 (2). 2005.The cochlear implant controversy involves questions about the nature of disability and the definition of “normal” bodies; it also raises arguments about the nature and significance of culture and the rights of minority cultures. I defend the claim that there might be such a thing as “Deaf culture” and then examine how two different understandings of the role of culture in the lives of individuals can lead to different conclusions about the rights of Deaf parents in relation to their children, a…Read more
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33Why Bioethicists Still Need to Think More About Sex …American Journal of Bioethics 10 (7). 2010.A disadvantage of adopting reductio ad absurdum as a mode of argument is that it multiplies the options available to one's critics. As with any argument, detractors may deny the argument's premises...
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |