Arjun Devanesan

It is often argued that in reproductive ethics, moral arguments rely on scientific facts of the matter, some controversial metaphysical assumptions and some crucial analogy. They usually take the form: given some scientific fact about fetuses or pregnancy and some metaphysical assumptions, pregnancy is analogous to some other scenario where some norm applies. If so, that norm should apply to pregnancy as well. Recently, Kingma proposed that, contrary to popular belief, the fetus is not merely contained by the gestator’s body but a part of it. This is a metaphysical claim which is grounded by scientific facts of the matter. However, while this appears to have obvious relevance for reproductive ethics and has been acknowledged as such, it is not at all obvious how the metaphysics of pregnancy impacts ethical debates. I will argue that what is judged as analogous to pregnancy, and what norms therefore apply, will directly depend, to some extent, on the assumed mereology of pregnancy. However, I will also show that no particular position on any ethical question follows from any mereological view. So, in this paper, I propose that the mereology of pregnancy does not determine what you can argue for, but it does determine how you argue for it.

In this article, I present the immunological account of physiological individuality courtesy of Thomas Pradeu and the evolutionary account of biological individuality from Ellen Clarke. I argue that in combination, the logic of these two accounts implies that all physiological individuals are capable of undergoing evolution by natural selection. The main objection to this view is the case of holobionts. Here I argue that this objection is unjustified and that holobionts meet basic criteria for evolutionary individuality. As such, this supports the view that physiological individuals are also evolutionary individuals.

In a recent article on the interpretation of probability in evidence-based medical practice, Jonathan Fuller argues that we should interpret probabilities as credences in individual cases because this avoids some important problems. In this article, I argue that Fuller misidentifies the real issue and so fails to offer a meaningful solution to it. The real problem with making probability judgments in individual cases is deciding which objective considerations ought to constrain our formation of credences. This leads us to the reference class problem, which, as Alan Hajek argues, is a problem for any interpretation of probability.

The traditional conception of immune function is that of a system which differentiates the organism’s own tissues (the self) from any foreign invaders (nonself), preserving the former by rejecting the latter. In a mammalian pregnancy, however, the immunologically foreign foetus is accepted by the gestator’s immune system. This presents a serious challenge to the self–nonself theory which has sometimes been called the immunological paradox of pregnancy. In this paper I shall defend the self–nonself theory against the critique posed by Thomas Pradeu. In addition I critically examine the alternative he proposes—the continuity theory. The main problem I will raise for any theory of immunology is that the phenomenon to be explained in pregnancy is the non-rejection of the foetus despite the triggering of the gestator’s immune system. I will argue that contemporary modified versions of the self–nonself theory can rise to this challenge but that continuity theory cannot. As such, the immunology of pregnancy gives us a good reason to favour contemporary self–nonself theory over the continuity theory.

In a new and interesting book entitled Medical Nihilism (2018), Jacob Stegenga attempts to convince us that modern medical therapies are less effective than we think. Given the heterogeneity of hypotheses in medicine and the evidence for or against them, I argue that such a decontextualised critique cannot be made unless substantially weakened. Instead, I put forward an alternative, more nuanced and defensible epistemic view of medicine. According to this view, evaluating medical evidence requires analysis of both the methods of research e.g. randomised controlled trial (RCT), and context-specific information. This is because the way a trial (even an RCT) is conducted e.g. the population recruited and how it is intervened on, will vary and will have significant effects on the likelihood of a positive outcome. Moreover, the relationship between the positive outcome of a trial and the actual effectiveness of an intervention (the trial validity) will depend on these context specific factors. I argue for this position against nihilism by showing how each of Stegenga's individual claims about medical trials (trials are biased in favour of positive outcomes etc) can be questioned by taking the context into consideration.