•  15
    Response to commentaries on Powell/Scarffe feature article
    Journal of Medical Ethics 45 (9): 597-598. 2019.
    We are grateful for the thoughtful attention the commentators and editors have given our paper. They raise many substantive points that warrant a response, but for reasons of journal space our reply must be brief. In our paper, we argue for an amended hybrid account of ‘disease’ in human medicine that takes normative ethics seriously, guards against pernicious classifications of disease and reconnects the concept with the goals of healthcare institutions in which disease diagnosis is embedded. C…Read more
  •  48
    Rethinking “Disease”: a fresh diagnosis and a new philosophical treatment
    Journal of Medical Ethics 45 (9): 579-588. 2019.
    Despite several decades of debate, the concept of disease remains hotly contested. The debate is typically cast as one between naturalism and normativism, with a hybrid view that combines elements of each staked out in between. In light of a number of widely discussed problems with existing accounts, some theorists argue that the concept of disease is beyond repair and thus recommend eliminating it in a wide range of practical medical contexts. Any attempt to reframe the ‘disease’ discussion sho…Read more
  •  34
    Rehabilitating Disease: Function, Value, and Objectivity in Medicine
    Philosophy of Science 86 (5): 1168-1178. 2019.
    The concept of disease remains hotly contested. In light of problems with existing accounts, some theorists argue that the disease concept ought to be eliminated. We answer this skeptical challenge by reframing the discussion in terms of the role that the disease concept plays in the complex network of health-care institutions in which it is deployed. We argue that while prevailing accounts do not suffer from the particular defects that critics have identified, they do suffer from other deficits…Read more
  •  5
    Religion, Intolerance, and Conflict: A Scientific and Conceptual Investigation (edited book)
    with Steve Clarke and Julian Savulescu
    Oxford University Press. 2013.
    The relationship between religion, intolerance and conflict has been the subject of intense discussion, particularly in the wake of the events of 9-11 and the ongoing threat of terrorism. This book contains original papers written by some of the world's leading scholars in anthropology, psychology, philosophy and theology exploring the scientific and conceptual dimensions of religion and human conflict. The volume will be of great interest to academics across avariety of disciplines, including r…Read more
  •  220
    Sex, lies and gender
    Journal of Medical Ethics 43 (1): 14-16. 2017.
    Browne 1 (this issue ) argues that what may appear to be a benevolent practice-disclosing the sex of a fetus to expecting parents who wish to know-is in fact an epistemically problematic and, as a result, ethically questionable medical practice. Browne worries that not only will the disclosure of fetal sex encourage sex-selective abortions (an issue we will not take up here), but also that it will convey a misleading and pernicious message about the relationship between sex and gender. More spec…Read more
  •  4
    Breaking Evolution's Chains
    In Julian Savulescu, Ruud ter Meulen & Guy Kahane (eds.), Enhancing Human Capacities, Blackwell. 2011.
    This chapter critically examines the evolutionary assumptions that underlie the notion that nature is like a master engineer. It compares and contrasts intentional genetic modification (IGM) with unintentional genetic modification (UGM) as to their potential for improving human life. The chapter first argues for two main theses. First, UGM operates under constraints that severely limit its ability to realize what human beings rightly value, including their own survival and improvement. Because I…Read more
  •  145
    Religion as an Evolutionary Byproduct: A Critique of the Standard Model
    with Steve Clarke
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63 (3): 457-486. 2012.
    The dominant view in the cognitive science of religion (the ‘Standard Model’) is that religious belief and behaviour are not adaptive traits but rather incidental byproducts of the cognitive architecture of mind. Because evidence for the Standard Model is inconclusive, the case for it depends crucially on its alleged methodological superiority to selectionist alternatives. However, we show that the Standard Model has both methodological and evidential disadvantages when compared with selectionis…Read more
  •  61
    Highlights from this issue
    Journal of Medical Ethics 38 (6): 325-326. 2012.
  •  353
    Evolution, Genetic Engineering, and Human Enhancement
    with Guy Kahane and Julian Savulescu
    Philosophy and Technology 25 (4): 439-458. 2012.
    There are many ways that biological theory can inform ethical discussions of genetic engineering and biomedical enhancement. In this essay, we highlight some of these potential contributions, and along the way provide a synthetic overview of the papers that comprise this special issue. We begin by comparing and contrasting genetic engineering with programs of selective breeding that led to the domestication of plants and animals, and we consider how genetic engineering differs from other contemp…Read more
  •  24
    The link between parasite-stress and complex psychological dispositions implies that the social, political, and economic benefits likely to flow from public health interventions that reduce rates of non-zoonotic infectious disease are far greater than have traditionally been thought. We sketch a prudential and ethical argument for increasing public health resources globally and redistributing these to focus on the alleviation of parasite-stress in human populations
  •  59
    In this review of Milan Ćirković’s The Great Silence: Science and Philosophy of Fermi’s Paradox, we attempt to reconstruct the logic of Fermi’s paradox as understood by the author, and we critically examine the reasoning that leads to the paradox. We show that there is no plausible solution to Fermi’s paradox that can satisfy all of Ćirković’s proposed desiderata, which in turn suggests that the author’s standards for hypothesis adjudication need to be revised.
  •  720
    Principles of procreative beneficence (PPBs) hold that parents have good reasons to select the child with the best life prospects. Sparrow (2010) claims that PPBs imply that we should select only female children, unlesswe attach normative significance to “normal” human capacities. We argue that this claim fails on both empirical and logical grounds. Empirically, Sparrow’s argument for greater female wellbeing rests on a selective reading of the evidence and the incorrect assumption that an advan…Read more
  •  81
    Is the creation of artificial life morally significant?
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (4b): 688-696. 2013.
    In 2010, the Venter lab announced that it had created the first bacterium with an entirely synthetic genome. This was reported to be the first instance of ‘artificial life,’ and in the ethical and policy discussions that followed it was widely assumed that the creation of artificial life is in itself morally significant. We cast doubt on this assumption. First we offer an account of the creation of artificial life that distinguishes this from the derivation of organisms from existing life and cl…Read more
  •  195
    Stephen Jay Gould argued that replaying the ‘tape of life’ would result in radically different evolutionary outcomes. Recently, biologists and philosophers of science have paid increasing attention to the theoretical importance of convergent evolution—the independent origination of similar biological forms and functions—which many interpret as evidence against Gould’s thesis. In this paper, we examine the evidentiary relevance of convergent evolution for the radical contingency debate. We show t…Read more
  •  28
    The idea of moral progress played a central role in liberal political thought from the Enlightenment through the nineteenth century but is rarely encountered in moral and political philosophical discourse today. One reason for this is that traditional liberal theorists of moral progress, like their conservative detractors, tended to rely on under-evidenced assumptions about human psychology and society. For the first time, we are developing robust scientific knowledge about human nature, especia…Read more
  •  14
    Reply to Comments
    Analyse & Kritik 41 (2): 287-300. 2019.
    Commentators on The Evolution of Moral Progress: A Biocultural Theory raise a number of metaethical and moral concerns with our analysis, as well as some complaints regarding how we have interpreted and made use of the contemporary evolutionary and social sciences of morality. Some commentators assert that one must already presuppose a moral theory before one can even begin to theorize moral progress; others query whether the shift toward greater inclusion is really a case of moral progress, or …Read more
  •  31
    Steven Pinker has said that one of the most important questions humans can ask of themselves is whether moral progress has occurred or is likely to occur. Buchanan and Powell here address that question, in order to provide the first naturalistic, empirically-informed and analytically sophisticated theory of moral progress--explaining the capacities in the human brain that allow for it, the role of the environment, and how contingent and fragile moral progress can be.
  •  83
    Toward a Naturalistic Theory of Moral Progress
    Ethics 126 (4): 983-1014. 2016.
    Early liberal theories about the feasibility of moral progress were premised on empirically ungrounded assumptions about human psychology and society. In this article, we develop a richer naturalistic account of the conditions under which one important form of moral progress–the emergence of more “inclusive” moralities–is likely to arise and be sustained. Drawing upon work in evolutionary psychology and social moral epistemology, we argue that “exclusivist” morality is the result of an adaptivel…Read more
  •  53
    Abstract:Liberal thinkers of the Enlightenment understood that surplus moral constraints, imposed by invalid moral norms, are a serious limitation on liberty. They also recognized that overcoming surplus moral constraints — what we call proper de-moralization — is an important dimension of moral progress. Contemporary philosophical theorists of liberty have largely neglected the threat that surplus moral constraints pose to liberty and the importance of proper de-moralization for human emancipat…Read more
  •  11
    Highlights from this issue
    Journal of Medical Ethics 42 (3): 145-146. 2016.
  •  41
    Highlights from this issue: The biomedical enhancement of moral status
    Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (2): 65-66. 2013.
    The biomedical enhancement of human capacities has emerged as one of the most philosophically invigorating areas of contemporary bioethical research. In exploring the ethical dimensions of emerging biotechnologies and human–machine interfaces, the literature on human enhancement has made significant contributions to traditional problems in moral philosophy. One such area concerns the enhancement of cognitive capacities that bear on moral status. Could biotechnological or other forms of neurocogn…Read more
  •  95
    In Genes We Trust: Germline Engineering, Eugenics, and the Future of the Human Genome
    Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 40 (6): 669-695. 2015.
    Liberal proponents of genetic engineering maintain that developing human germline modification technologies is morally desirable because it will result in a net improvement in human health and well-being. Skeptics of germline modification, in contrast, fear evolutionary harms that could flow from intervening in the human germline, and worry that such programs, even if well intentioned, could lead to a recapitulation of the scientifically and morally discredited projects of the old eugenics. Some…Read more
  •  14
    The ethics of biomedical markets
    Journal of Medical Ethics 41 (6): 431-432. 2015.
  •  21
    It may soon be possible to diagnose neurodegenerative disorders, such as early onset Alzheimer's disease, with a high degree of accuracy well before these conditions become symptomatic. In a carefully argued and thought-provoking piece, Dena Davis maintains that preemptive suicide may be a rational option for those confronted with a preclinical diagnosis of impending dementia, and consequently that withholding the results of dementia research until effective treatments become available constitut…Read more
  •  27
    What does human evolutionary theory reveal about the origins of human nature and the constraints it imposes on human cognition, behavior, and society? “The whole field of human evolution is pregnant with philosophical questions of great interest”, Michael Ruse concludes in the final passage of The Philosophy of Human Evolution. This engaging and eminently readable romp through the philosophical landscape of human evolution fills a significant niche in the existing literature. There are numerous …Read more