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72The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Sex and Sexuality (edited book)Routledge Handbooks in Philosophy. 2022.This Handbook covers the most urgent, controversial, and important topics in the philosophy of sex. It is both philosophically rigorous and yet accessible to specialists and non-specialists, covering ethics, political philosophy, metaphysics, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of language, and featuring interactions with neighboring disciplines such as psychology, bioethics, sociology, and anthropology. The volume's 40 chapters, written by an international team of both respected senio…Read more
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28Culture, Context, and Community in Contemporary Psychedelic ResearchPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 28 (3): 217-221. 2021.Psychedelics require cross-cultural, interdisciplinary study, and we were happy to see a contribution from the field of medical anthropology. Such a study holds the promise of characterizing the ways in which psychedelics are situated in contemporary societies, both within and beyond research and clinical contexts. Here, we offer some friendly criticism of the target article by Noorani while also highlighting various points of agreement and looking ahead to future research in this field.Noorani’…Read more
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1430The Technological Future of LoveIn André Grahle, Natasha McKeever & Joe Saunders (eds.), Philosophy of Love in the Past, Present, and Future, Routledge. pp. 224-239. 2022.How might emerging and future technologies—sex robots, love drugs, anti-love drugs, or algorithms to track, quantify, and ‘gamify’ romantic relationships—change how we understand and value love? We canvass some of the main ethical worries posed by such technologies, while also considering whether there are reasons for “cautious optimism” about their implications for our lives. Along the way, we touch on some key ideas from the philosophies of love and technology.
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54Advancing Methods in Empirical Bioethics: Bioxphi Meets Digital TechnologiesAmerican Journal of Bioethics 21 (6): 53-56. 2021.Historically, empirical research in bioethics has drawn on methods developed within the social sciences, including qualitative interviews, focus groups, ethnographic studies, and opinion surveys, t...
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16Writing in philosophy: Reply to FrederickThink 20 (58): 89-92. 2021.Frederick offers a critique of my writing tips aimed at undergraduate students coming to philosophy – and in many cases, essay writing – for the first time Frederick claims that most of my tips are good tips but characterizes two of them as bad tips, as follows: Bad tip 1. Be very careful about making any universal claims. Such a claim can be refuted by just a single counterexample. Do not leave yourself open to such refutation. Make a universal claim only if you are sure that there are no count…Read more
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77Some writing tips for philosophyThink 20 (58): 75-80. 2021.If you grade enough papers, you will find some consistent pitfalls, especially in the writing of students who are coming to philosophy for the first time. I wrote up the following tips a couple of years ago when I was a teaching assistant for an introductory philosophy class at Yale led by Daniel Greco called ‘Problems in Philosophy’. The tips were intended, then, for college students, many of them right out of high school, and most of whom had never written a philosophy paper before. So the foc…Read more
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1082The Ordinary Concept of True LoveIn Christopher Grau & Aaron Smuts (eds.), "Introduction" for the Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Love, Oxford University Press. 2024.When we say that what two people feel for each other is 'true love,' we seem to be doing more than simply clarifying that it is in fact love they feel, as opposed to something else. That is, an experience or relationship might be a genuine or actual instance of love without necessarily being an instance of true love. But what criteria do people use to determine whether something counts as true love? This chapter explores three hypotheses. The first holds that the ordinary concept of true love pi…Read more
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56Male or female genital cutting: why ‘health benefits’ are morally irrelevantJournal of Medical Ethics 47 (12). 2021.The WHO, American Academy of Pediatrics and other Western medical bodies currently maintain that all medically unnecessary female genital cutting of minors is categorically a human rights violation, while either tolerating or actively endorsing medically unnecessary male genital cutting of minors, especially in the form of penile circumcision. Given that some forms of female genital cutting, such as ritual pricking or nicking of the clitoral hood, are less severe than penile circumcision, yet ar…Read more
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26Debating genderThink 20 (57): 9-21. 2021.There is an ongoing public debate about sex, gender and identity that is often quite heated. This is an edited transcript of an informal lecture I recorded in 2019 to serve as a friendly guide to these complex issues. It represents my best attempt, not to score political points for any particular side, but to give an introductory map of the territory so that you can think for yourself, investigate further, and reach your own conclusions about such controversial questions as ‘What does mean to be…Read more
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443In Science We Trust? Being Honest About the Limits of Medical Research During COVID-19American Journal of Bioethics 21 (1): 22-24. 2021.As a result of the world-wide COVID-19 epidemic, an internal tension in the goals of medicine has come to the forefront of public debate. Medical professionals are continuously faced with a tug of...
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56Robots and sexual ethicsJournal of Medical Ethics 47 (1): 1-2. 2021.Much of modern ethics is built around the idea that we should respect one another’s autonomy. Here, “we” are typically imagined to be adult human beings of sound mind, where the soundness of our mind is measured against what we take to be the typical mental capacities of a neurodevelopmentally “normal” person—perhaps in their mid-thirties or forties. When deciding about what constitutes ethical sex, for example, our dominant models hold that ethical sex is whatever is consented to, while a lack …Read more
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15Identity, well-being and autonomy in ongoing puberty suppression for non-binary adults: a response to the commentariesJournal of Medical Ethics 46 (11): 761-762. 2020.We thank the commentators for their thoughtful responses to our article.1 Due to space constraints, we will confine our discussion to just three key issues. The first issue relates to the central ethical conundrum for clinicians working with young people like Phoenix: namely, how to respect, value and defer to a person’s own account of their identity and what is needed for their well-being, while staying open to the possibility that such an account may reflect a work in progress. This conundrum …Read more
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62A new Tuskegee? Unethical human experimentation and Western neocolonialism in the mass circumcision of African menDeveloping World Bioethics 21 (4): 211-226. 2020.Developing World Bioethics, Volume 21, Issue 4, Page 211-226, December 2021.
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70Personal Transformation and Advance Directives: An Experimental Bioethics ApproachAmerican Journal of Bioethics 20 (8): 72-75. 2020.Volume 20, Issue 8, August 2020, Page 72-75.
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31Forever young? The ethics of ongoing puberty suppression for non-binary adultsJournal of Medical Ethics 46 (11): 743-752. 2020.In this article, we analyse the novel case of Phoenix, a non-binary adult requesting ongoing puberty suppression to permanently prevent the development of secondary sex characteristics, as a way of affirming their gender identity. We argue that the aim of OPS is consistent with the proper goals of medicine to promote well-being, and therefore could ethically be offered to non-binary adults in principle; there are additional equity-based reasons to offer OPS to non-binary adults as a group; and t…Read more
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25Sexual Orientation Minority Rights and High-Tech Conversion TherapyIn David Boonin (ed.), Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Public Policy, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 535-550. 2018.The ‘born this way’ movement for sexual orientation minority rights is premised on the view that sexual orientation is something that can neither be chosen nor changed. Indeed, current sexual orientation change efforts appear to be both harmful and ineffective. But what if ‘high-tech conversion therapies’ are invented in the future that are effective at changing sexual orientation? The conceptual basis for the movement would collapse. In this chapter, we argue that the threat of HCT should be ta…Read more
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61Pandemic medical ethicsJournal of Medical Ethics 46 (6): 353-354. 2020.The COVID-19 pandemic will generate vexing ethical issues for the foreseeable future and many journals will be open to content that is relevant to our collective effort to meet this challenge. While the pandemic is clearly the critical issue of the moment, it’s important that other issues in medical ethics continue to be addressed as well. As can be seen in this issue, the Journal of Medical Ethics will uphold its commitment to publishing high quality papers on the full array of medical ethics. …Read more
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18Who are “we” and why are we cooperating? Insights from social psychologyBehavioral and Brain Sciences 43. 2020.Tomasello argues in the target article that a sense of moral obligation emerges from the creation of a collaborative “we” motivating us to fulfill our cooperative duties. We suggest that “we” takes many forms, entailing different obligations, depending on the type of the relationship in question. We sketch a framework of such types, functions, and obligations to guide future research in our commentary.
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10Systems thinking in gender and medicineJournal of Medical Ethics 46 (4): 225-226. 2020.If there is a single thread running through this issue of the journal, it may be the complex interplay between the individual and the system of which they are apart, highlighting a need for systems thinking in medical ethics and public health.1 2 Such thinking raises at least three sorts of questions in this context: normative questions about the locus of moral responsibility for change when a system is unjust; practical questions about how to change systems in a way that is morally appropriate …Read more
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767Moral NeuroenhancementIn L. Syd M. Johnson & Karen S. Rommelfanger (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Neuroethics, Routledge. 2017.In this chapter, we introduce the notion of “moral neuroenhancement,” offering a novel definition as well as spelling out three conditions under which we expect that such neuroenhancement would be most likely to be permissible (or even desirable). Furthermore, we draw a distinction between first-order moral capacities, which we suggest are less promising targets for neurointervention, and second-order moral capacities, which we suggest are more promising. We conclude by discussing concerns…Read more
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59Hume's Missing Shade of Blue: A New SolutionJournal of Scottish Philosophy 18 (1): 91-104. 2020.What to do with the missing shade of blue? Some have argued that Hume's famous thought experiment undermines his central doctrine – the ‘copy principle’ – such that he should have revised his whole theory in light of it. Others contend that the MSB is not a true or actual counterexample to the copy principle, but merely an apparent or conceivable one, so that he had no such obligation to revise. In this essay, I argue that even if the MSB is a true counterexample, Hume would not have been obliga…Read more
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36What is the best age to circumcise? A medical and ethical analysisBioethics 34 (7): 645-663. 2020.Circumcision is often claimed to be simpler, safer and more cost-effective when performed in the neonatal period as opposed to later in life, with a greater benefit-to-risk ratio. In the first part of this paper, we critically examine the evidence base for these claims, and find that it is not as robust as is commonly assumed. In the second part, we demonstrate that, even if one simply grants these claims for the sake of argument, it still does not follow that neonatal circumcision is ethically …Read more
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562Addiction, Identity, MoralityAJOB Empirical Bioethics 10 (2): 136-153. 2019.Background: Recent literature on addiction and judgments about the characteristics of agents has focused on the implications of adopting a ‘brain disease’ versus ‘moral weakness’ model of addiction. Typically, such judgments have to do with what capacities an agent has (e.g., the ability to abstain from substance use). Much less work, however, has been conducted on the relationship between addiction and judgments about an agent’s identity, including whether or to what extent an individual …Read more
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25Direct-to-Consumer Neurotechnologies and Quantified Relationship Technologies: Overlapping Ethical ConcernsAmerican Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 10 (4): 167-170. 2019.
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14Callahanian BioethicsHastings Center Report 49 (5): 7-8. 2019.For someone with an outsized influence on a field he helped to create, Dan Callahan was anything but overbearing. Physically compact, thin, and wiry in older age, he spoke at the rapid speed of his mind. Soon after I met him—when I was on the cusp of what would become a year‐long residency at The Hastings Center—I found myself seated in his decidedly quaint living room. Dan told a story that evening, one of many that has stuck in my head. It seemed to encapsulate his moral mindset and, in a way,…Read more
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532Brain stimulation for treatment and enhancement in children: an ethical analysisFrontiers in Human Neuroscience 8. 2014.Davis called for “extreme caution” in the use of non-invasive brain stimulation to treat neurological disorders in children, due to gaps in scientific knowledge. We are sympathetic to his position. However, we must also address the ethical implications of applying this technology to minors. Compensatory trade-offs associated with NIBS present a challenge to its use in children, insofar as these trade-offs have the effect of limiting the child’s future options. The distinction between treatment a…Read more
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3007Should we campaign against sex robots?In John Danaher & Neil McArthur (eds.), Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications, Mit Press. 2017.In September 2015 a well-publicised Campaign Against Sex Robots (CASR) was launched. Modelled on the longer-standing Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, the CASR opposes the development of sex robots on the grounds that the technology is being developed with a particular model of female-male relations (the prostitute-john model) in mind, and that this will prove harmful in various ways. In this chapter, we consider carefully the merits of campaigning against such a technology. We make three main arg…Read more
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168Psychedelic Moral EnhancementRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 83 415-439. 2018.The moral enhancement (or bioenhancement) debate seems stuck in a dilemma. On the one hand, the more radical proposals, while certainly novel and interesting, seem unlikely to be feasible in practice, or if technically feasible then most likely imprudent. But on the other hand, the more sensible proposals – sensible in the sense of being both practically achievable and more plausibly ethically justifiable – can be rather hard to distinguish from both traditional forms of moral enhancement, such …Read more
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55Brave New Love: The Threat of High-Tech “Conversion” Therapy and the Bio-Oppression of Sexual MinoritiesAmerican Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 5 (1): 4-12. 2014.Our understanding of the neurochemical bases of human love and attachment, as well as of the genetic, epigenetic, hormonal, and experiential factors that conspire to shape an individual's sexual orientation, is increasing exponentially. This research raises the vexing possibility that we may one day be equipped to modify such variables directly, allowing for the creation of “high-tech” conversion therapies or other suspect interventions. In this article, we discuss the ethics surrounding such a …Read more
Oxford, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
PhilPapers Editorships
Experimental Philosophy: Bioethics |