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289Medicine, symbolization and the 'real' body: Lacan's understanding of medical scienceMedicine, Health Care and Philosophy 1 (2): 107-117. 1998.Throughout the 20th century, philosophers have criticized the scientific understanding of the human body. Instead of presenting the body as a meaningful unity or Gestalt, it is regarded as a complex mechanism and described in quasi-mechanistic terms. In a phenomenological approach, a more intimate experience of the body is presented. This approach, however, is questioned by Jacques Lacan. According to Lacan, three basic possibilities of experiencing the body are to be distinguished: the symbolic…Read more
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180Next. Michael Crichton. New York: Harper Collins, 2006 (review)Genomics, Society and Policy 3 (3): 48-51. 2007.Michael Crichton‟s latest novel Next (2006) is his third about genomics. Yet, whereas Jurassic Park (and its sequel The lost world) contained stories about sequencing, reconstructing and revivifying the genomes of (extinct) animals, Next analyses the impact of genomics in the biomedical sphere: its consequences for human life (health, labour, sexuality, family life). Gene patenting, and the philosophy of genetic determinism that inspired and legitimised this practice, is at the root of most of t…Read more
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1006Hysteria Chemicorum'. Metabletische Beschouwing Over Een Beroepsziekte Van Scheikundigende Uil Van Minerva 20 187-200. 2005.
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1Is intellectueel eigendom diefstal? Een commentaar op Gilbert Larochelle, 'Van Kant tot Foucault: de auteur in het postmodernisme'Filosofie En Praktijk 20 72-76. 1999.
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261Genomics and identity: the bioinformatisation of human life (review)Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 12 (2): 125-136. 2009.The genomics “revolution” is spreading. Originating in the molecular life sciences, it initially affected a number of biomedical research fields such as cancer genomics and clinical genetics. Now, however, a new “wave” of genomic bioinformation is transforming a widening array of disciplines, including those that address the social, historical and cultural dimensions of human life. Increasingly, bioinformation is affecting “human sciences” such as psychiatry, psychology, brain research, behaviou…Read more
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89From circle to square: Integrity, vulnerability and digitalizationBioethics and Biolaw 2 141-156. 2000.
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221From Utopia to Science: Challenges of Personalised Genomics Information for Health Management and Health Enhancement (review)Medicine Studies 1 (2): 155-166. 2009.From 1900 onwards, scientists and novelists have explored the contours of a future society based on the use of “anthropotechnologies” (techniques applicable to human beings for the purpose of performance enhancement ranging from training and education to genome-based biotechnologies). Gradually but steadily, the technologies involved migrated from (science) fiction into scholarly publications, and from “utopia” (or “dystopia”) into science. Building on seminal ideas borrowed from Nietzsche, Pete…Read more
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1856Ethical consensus and the truth of laughter: the structure of moral transformationsKok Pharos Pub. House. 1996.There are several strategies for exposing the defects of established moral discourse, one of which is critical argumentation. However, under certain specific historical circumstances, the apparent self-evidence of established moral discourse has gained such dominance, such a capacity of resistance or incorporation, such an ability to conceal its basic vulnerability that its validity simply seems beyond contestation. Notwithstanding the moral subject’s basic discontent, he or she remains unable t…Read more
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24Comparative epistemology: Contours of a research programActa Biotheoretica 53 (2): 77-92. 2005.This article addresses the question whether and how literary documents can be used to further our understanding of a number of key issues on the agenda of the philosophy of biology such as “complexity” and “reductionism”. Kant already granted a certain respectability to aesthetical experiences of nature in his third Critique. Subsequently, the philosophical movement known as phenomenology often used literary sources and literary techniques to criticize and question mainstream laboratory science.…Read more
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1509A short history of food ethicsJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 12 (2): 113-126. 2000.Moral concern with food intake is as old asmorality itself. In the course of history, however,several ways of critically examining practices of foodproduction and food intake have been developed.Whereas ancient Greek food ethics concentrated on theproblem of temperance, and ancient Jewish ethics onthe distinction between legitimate and illicit foodproducts, early Christian morality simply refused toattach any moral significance to food intake. Yet,during the middle ages food became one of thepri…Read more
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140Consensus formation as a basic strategy in ethicsIn H. Ten Have & Bert Gordijn (eds.), Bioethics in a European perspective, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 8--281. 2001.
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289Biotechnology and naturalness in the genomics era: Plotting a timetable for the biotechnology debate (review)Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 22 (6): 505-529. 2009.Debates on the role of biotechnology in food production are beset with notorious ambiguities. This already applies to the term “biotechnology” itself. Does it refer to the use and modification of living organisms in general, or rather to a specific set of technologies developed quite recently in the form of bioengineering and genetic modification? No less ambiguous are discussions concerning the question to what extent biotechnology must be regarded as “unnatural.” In this article it will be arg…Read more
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1216Aquaphobia, Tulipmania, Biophilia: A Moral Geography of the Dutch LandscapeEnvironmental Values 12 (1): 107-128. 2003.In Genesis we are told that God gathered the waters into one place, in order to let the dry land appear, which He called earth, while the waters were called seas. In the Netherlands, this process took more than a single day, and it was the work of man. Gradually, a cultivated landscape emerged out of diffuse nature. In the course of centuries, the Dutch determined the conditions that allowed different aspects of nature to present themselves. This process is described as a moral geography in the …Read more
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287Bioethics: An export product? Reflections on hands-on involvement in exploring the “external” validity of international bioethical declarations (review)Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 6 (3): 367-377. 2009.As the technosciences, including genomics, develop into a global phenomenon, the question inevitably emerges whether and to what extent bioethics can and should become a globalised phenomenon as well. Could we somehow articulate a set of core principles or values that ought to be respected worldwide and that could serve as a universal guide or blueprint for bioethical regulations for embedding biotechnologies in various countries? This article considers one universal declaration, the UNESCO Decl…Read more
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Radboud UniversityProfessor