• Data Safety Monitoring during Covid-19: Keep On Keeping On
    Ethics and Human Research 42 (3): 43-44. 2020.
    A discussion of lessons learned in the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic which allowed data safety monitoring boards (DSMBs) to continue their work protecting the interests of human research participants while preserving research studies.
  •  1
    Randomization Among: The Other Randomization (5th ed.)
    Ethics and Human Research 41 (5): 35-40. 2019.
    Researchers may be concurrently recruiting for several multi-site clinical trials at the same time, placing them in the position of potentially recruiting a patient-participant into one of several competing trials. This article examines how researchers should go about making equipoise calculations when competition emerges, creating ethical dilemmas about randomizing among, and not merely within, clinical trials.
  •  35
    Pragmatic Aesthetics and the Autistic Artist
    with Kyle Hunter
    Journal of Aesthetic Education 46 (4): 48-56. 2012.
    There are striking examples of artistic achievement among persons with autism. While autism can be the source of profound social isolation and physical difficulties, it can also lead to great accomplishment: it is estimated that between 5 percent1 and 10 percent2 of persons with autism have special skills or talents. These talents range widely, from abilities to pick out prime numbers or calculating the days of the week for dates many years into the future or the past, to the musical and visual …Read more
  •  22
    Research Ethics
    Prentice-Hall. 2001.
    Original chapters complement anthologized readings on topics in research ethics such as informed consent, the use of humans and animals in research, research misconduct, and conflicts of interest.
  •  14
    Euthanasia and Counterfactual Consent
    Dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst. 1996.
    Counterfactuals about what a patient would consent to, if he were able to consent, are often cited as justifications, or partial justifications, for acts of euthanasia. In virtue of this fact, they deserve special scrutiny by moral philosophers. ;In Chapter I, I examine terminology that is essential to further understanding the relationship between euthanasia and counterfactual consent. I propose a definition of 'euthanasia', an analysis of 'consent', and I present a brief description of counter…Read more
  •  31
    Why Tamagatchis Are Not Pets
    Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children 13 (4): 41-43. 1998.
    What makes "digital pets" pets? This article posits four necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for an individual to be a pet, concluding that digital pets fail to meet these sufficient criteria and thus are not pets.
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    Supererogation in clinical research
    Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 11 (3): 343-349. 2008.
    ‘Supererogation’ is the notion of going beyond the call of duty. The concept of supererogation has received scrutiny in ethical theory, as well as clinical bioethics. Yet, there has been little attention paid to supererogation in research ethics. Supererogation is examined in this paper from three perspectives: (1) a summary of two analyses of ‘supererogation’ in moral theory, as well as an examination as to whether acts of supererogation exist; (2) a discussion of supererogation in clinical pra…Read more
  •  27
    Sellars and Contemporary Philosophy (edited book)
    Routledge. 2017.
    Wilfrid Sellars made profound and lasting contributions to nearly every area of philosophy. The aim of this collection is to highlight the continuing importance of Sellars’ work to contemporary debates. The contributors include several luminaries in Sellars scholarship, as well as members of the new generation whose work demonstrates the lasting power of Sellars’ ideas. Papers by O’Shea and Koons develop Sellars’ underexplored views concerning ethics, practical reasoning, and free will, with an …Read more
  •  67
    Teaching Empathy in Medical Ethics
    Teaching Philosophy 24 (1): 63-75. 2001.
    Being empathetic (or compassionate) is an important trait that allows for those working in health care professions to successfully analyze cases and provide patients with adequate care. One standard and enormously important way to try and teach empathy involves the use of case studies. The case-study approach, however, has some unique limitations in teaching empathy. This paper describes an activity where students are asked to imagine that they have contracted a specific disease (one that lasts …Read more
  •  57
    The gambler's fallacy, the therapeutic misconception, and unrealistic optimism
    with Don Swekoski
    IRB: Ethics & Human Research 35 (2): 1-6. 2013.
    The Therapeutic Misconception (TM) is a cognitive error with similarities to another cognitive error -- the Gambler's Fallacy (GF). This paper examines the similarities between TM and GF in an attempt to further illuminate the nature of TM, and to distinguish it from another cognitive error, Unrealistic Optimism (UO). Many cases of UO and mis-classified as TM.
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    Interpreting surrogate consent using counterfactuals
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 16 (2). 1999.
    Philosophers such as Dan Brock believe that surrogates who make health care decisions on behalf of previously competent patients, in the absence of an advance directive, should make these decisions based upon a substituted judgment principle. Brock favours substituted judgment over a best interests standard. However, Edward Wierenga claims that the substituted judgment principle ought to be abandoned in favour of a best interests standard, because of an inherent problem with the substituted judg…Read more
  •  77
    The Ethics of Autism: Among Them, but Not of Them
    Indiana University Press. 2008.
    Autism is one of the most compelling, controversial, and heartbreaking cognitive disorders. It presents unique philosophical challenges as well, raising intriguing questions in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and philosophy of language that need to be explored if the autistic population is to be responsibly served. Starting from the "theory of mind" thesis that a fundamental deficit in autism is the inability to recognize that other persons have minds, Deborah R. Barnbaum considers its im…Read more
  •  19
    "Making More Sense of" Minimal Risk"
    IRB: Ethics & Human Research 24 (3): 10-13. 2002.
    The product rule has been used to calculate the risk of a research study, in which the risk of harm is calculated as the product of the degree of harm multiplied by the likelihood that the harm will occur. This article challenges the product rule, especially when used to calculate "minimal risk" studies.