•  13
    Limited Aggregation is the view that when there are competing moral claims that demand our attention, we should sometimes satisfy the largest aggregate of claims, depending on the strength of the claims in question. In recent years, philosophers such as Patrick Tomlin and Alastair Norcross have argued that Limited Aggregation violates a number of rational choice principles such as Transitivity, Separability, and Contraction Consistency. Current versions of Limited Aggregation are what may be cal…Read more
  •  17
    Current Controversies in Bioethics (edited book)
    Routledge. 2016.
    Bioethics is the study of ethical issues arising out of advances in the life sciences and medicine. Historically, bioethics has been associated with issues in research ethics and clinical ethics as a result of research scandals such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and public debates about the definition of death, medical paternalism, health care rationing, and abortion. As biomedical technologies have advanced, challenging new questions have arisen for bioethics and new sub-disciplines such as ne…Read more
  •  58
    A Right Response to Anti-Natalism
    Res Philosophica 100 (4): 449-471. 2023.
    Most people think that, other things being equal, you are at liberty to decide for yourself whether to have children. However, there are some people, aptly called anti-natalists, who believe that it is always morally wrong to have children. Anti-natalists are attracted to at least two types of arguments. According to the Positives Are Irrelevant Argument, unless a life contains no negative things at all, it is irrelevant that life also contains positive things. According to the Positives Are Ins…Read more
  •  61
    Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights (edited book)
    Oxford University Press UK. 2015.
    What makes something a human right? What is the relationship between the moral foundations of human rights and human rights law? What are the difficulties of appealing to human rights? This book offers the first comprehensive survey of current thinking on the philosophical foundations of human rights. Divided into four parts, this book focuses firstly on the moral grounds of human rights, for example in our dignity, agency, interests or needs. Secondly, it looks at the implications that differen…Read more
  •  13
    Designer Biology: The Ethics of Intensively Engineering Biological and Ecological Systems (edited book)
    with Immaculada de Melo Martin, Valentina Urbanek, David Frank, William Kabasenche, Nicholas Agar, Anders Sandberg, Rebecca Roache, Allen Thompson, Stephen Jackson, Donald S. Maier, Nicole Hassoun, Benjamin Hale, Sune Holm, and Scott Simmons
    Lexington Books. 2013.
    Designer Biology: The Ethics of Intensively Engineering Biological and Ecological Systems consists of thirteen chapters that address the ethical issues raised by technological intervention and design across a broad range of biological and ecological systems. Among the technologies addressed are geoengineering, human enhancement, sex selection, genetic modification, and synthetic biology
  •  2
    After Prozac
    with Rebecca Roache
    In Julian Savulescu, Ruud ter Meulen & Guy Kahane (eds.), Enhancing Human Capacities, Blackwell. 2011.
    Prozac's introduction in the late 1980s, caused a furor and focused debate on the acceptability of a drug that could do more than merely cure illness, pharmacological mood enhancement – that is, the use of drugs to improve mood beyond a level that is merely normal or healthy. As the possibilities and demand for mood enhancement increase, existing legislation will prove inadequate, designed as it is to regulate pharmaceuticals mainly for therapeutic use. This chapter explains why mood enhancement…Read more
  •  10
    Instruments of Moral Distress: An Analysis Based on Scientificity and Application Value
    with Lijun Shen, Hui Zhang, Yongguang Yang, and Yuming Wang
    American Journal of Bioethics 23 (4): 89-91. 2023.
    In the target article by Kolbe and de Melo-Martin (2023), the authors discussed several shortcomings of major instruments of moral distress, including the Moral Distress Scale (MDS) (Corley et al....
  •  237
    The ethics of using genetic engineering for sex selection
    Journal of Medical Ethics 31 (2): 116-118. 2005.
    It is quite likely that parents will soon be able to use genetic engineering to select the sex of their child by directly manipulating the sex of an embryo. Some might think that this method would be a more ethical method of sex selection than present technologies such as preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) because, unlike PGD, it does not need to create and destroy “wrong gendered” embryos. This paper argues that those who object to present technologies on the grounds that the embryo is a p…Read more
  •  141
    The Duty to Disclose Adverse Clinical Trial Results
    with Mark Sheehan and Steve Clarke
    American Journal of Bioethics 9 (8): 24-32. 2009.
    Participants in some clinical trials are at risk of being harmed and sometimes are seriously harmed as a result of not being provided with available, relevant risk information. We argue that this situation is unacceptable and that there is a moral duty to disclose all adverse clinical trial results to participants in clinical trials. This duty is grounded in the human right not to be placed at risk of harm without informed consent. We consider objections to disclosure grounded in considerations …Read more
  •  143
    The Ashley treatment: Best Interests, Convenience, and Parental Decision Making
    with Julian Savulescu and Mark Sheehan
    Hastings Center Report 37 (2): 16-20. 2007.
    The story of Ashley, a nine-year-old from Seattle, has caused a good deal of controversy since it appeared in the Los Angeles Times on January 3, 2007.1 Ashley was born with a condition called static encephalopathy, a severe brain impairment that leaves her unable to walk, talk, eat, sit up, or roll over. According to her doctors, Ashley has reached, and will remain at, the developmental level of a three-month-old.
  •  19
    Disclosing Clinical Trial Results: Publicity, Significance and Independence
    with Mark Sheehan and Steve Clarke
    American Journal of Bioethics 9 (8): 3-5. 2009.
    Participants in some clinical trials are at risk of being harmed and sometimes are seriously harmed as a result of not being provided with available, relevant risk information. We argue that this situation is unacceptable and that there is a moral duty to disclose all adverse clinical trial results to participants in clinical trials. This duty is grounded in the human right not to be placed at risk of harm without informed consent. We consider objections to disclosure grounded in considerations …Read more
  •  188
    Political and Naturalistic Conceptions of Human Rights: A False Polemic?
    Journal of Moral Philosophy 9 (3): 327-352. 2012.
    What are human rights? According to one longstanding account, the Naturalistic Conception of human rights, human rights are those that we have simply in virtue of being human. In recent years, however, a new and purportedly alternative conception of human rights has become increasingly popular. This is the so-called Political Conception of human rights, the proponents of which include John Rawls, Charles Beitz, and Joseph Raz. In this paper we argue for three claims. First, we demonstrate that N…Read more
  •  35
    Genetic Information, the Principle of Rescue, and Special Obligations
    with Jordan MacKenzie
    Hastings Center Report 48 (3): 18-19. 2018.
    In “Genetic Privacy, Disease Prevention, and the Principle of Rescue,” Madison Kilbride argues that patients have a duty to warn biological family members about clinically actionable adverse genetic findings. The duty does not stem from the special obligations that we may have to family members, she argues, but rather follows from the principle of rescue, which she understands as the idea that one ought to prevent, reduce, or mitigate the risk of harm to another person when the expected harm is …Read more
  •  90
    The Place of Philosophy in Bioethics Today
    with Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby, Sean Aas, Dan Brudney, Jessica Flanigan, Alex London, Wayne Sumner, and Julian Savulescu
    American Journal of Bioethics 22 (12): 10-21. 2021.
    In some views, philosophy’s glory days in bioethics are over. While philosophers were especially important in the early days of the field, so the argument goes, the majority of the work in bioethics today involves the “simple” application of existing philosophical principles or concepts, as well as empirical work in bioethics. Here, we address this view head on and ask: What is the role of philosophy in bioethics today? This paper has three specific aims: (1) to respond to skeptics and make the …Read more
  •  279
    In recent years, a number of philosophers have conducted empirical studies that survey people's intuitions about various subject matters in philosophy. Some have found that intuitions vary accordingly to seemingly irrelevant facts: facts about who is considering the hypothetical case, the presence or absence of certain kinds of content, or the context in which the hypothetical case is being considered. Our research applies this experimental philosophical methodology to Judith Jarvis Thomson's fa…Read more
  •  45
    Ethics review of big data research: What should stay and what should be reformed?
    with Effy Vayena, Minerva Rivas Velarde, Mahsa Shabani, Gabrielle Samuel, Camille Nebeker, Peter Kleist, Walter Karlen, Jeff Kahn, Phoebe Friesen, Bobbie Farsides, Edward S. Dove, Alessandro Blasimme, Mark Sheehan, Marcello Ienca, and Agata Ferretti
    BMC Medical Ethics 22 (1): 1-13. 2021.
    BackgroundEthics review is the process of assessing the ethics of research involving humans. The Ethics Review Committee (ERC) is the key oversight mechanism designated to ensure ethics review. Whether or not this governance mechanism is still fit for purpose in the data-driven research context remains a debated issue among research ethics experts.Main textIn this article, we seek to address this issue in a twofold manner. First, we review the strengths and weaknesses of ERCs in ensuring ethical…Read more
  •  44
    There is enormous interest in using artificial intelligence (AI) in health care contexts. But before AI can be used in such settings, we need to make sure that AI researchers and organizations follow appropriate ethical frameworks and guidelines when developing these technologies. In recent years, a great number of ethical frameworks for AI have been proposed. However, these frameworks have tended to be abstract and not explain what grounds and justifies their recommendations and how one should …Read more
  •  12
    Editorial
    Journal of Moral Philosophy 20 (1-2): 1-2. 2023.
  •  9
    Security and Sharing of NIPT Data Are the Basis of Ethical Decision-Making Related to Non-Medical Traits
    with Wenke Yang, Zhenglong Guo, Weili Shi, Litao Qin, Xiaoliang Xia, and Bingtao Hao
    American Journal of Bioethics 23 (3): 29-31. 2023.
    Bowman-Smart et al. (2023) outlined the scenario that with the content expansion of noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) in the future, its application is not limited to the screening for aneuploidi...
  • Human rights as fundamental conditions for a good life
    In Rowan Cruft, S. Matthew Liao & Massimo Renzo (eds.), Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights, Oxford University Press Uk. 2015.
  •  39
    Both Spinoza and Buddhism raise objection to the existence of the self as independent. This work presents Spinoza’s and early Buddhism’s account of the non-self respectively, namely, that the self does not have independent existence. Starting from the non-self, I look into the metaphysical pictures outlined by Spinoza and Buddhism and argue that despite their agreement on the non-self, they differ in regard to their metaphysical views in general. In comparing and contrasting the two, I shall con…Read more
  •  5
    Power and responsibility: How different sources of CEO power affect firms' corporate social responsibility practices
    with Xingping Jia, Beatrice Van der Heijden, and Wenqian Li
    Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility 31 (3): 682-701. 2022.
    Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 3, Page 682-701, July 2022.
  •  13
    Power and responsibility: How different sources of CEO power affect firms' corporate social responsibility practices
    with Xingping Jia, Beatrice Van der Heijden, and Wenqian Li
    Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility 31 (3): 682-701. 2022.
    Does greater CEO power come with more responsibility? Previous scholarly work in this field entails divergent results on this question. Based on the upper echelons theory and CEO power literature, this study aimed to explore the mechanisms underlying how different sources of CEO power, including structural, ownership, expert, and prestige power, affect firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and whether such relationships are moderated by firm visibility. Using a panel dataset com…Read more
  •  2
    Innovative Strategies for Talent Cultivation in New Ventures Under Higher Education
    with Chunhui Zhao, Mengzhu Chen, Jing Yuan, and Ping Zhou
    Frontiers in Psychology 13. 2022.
    This study aims to help enterprises enhance their innovation capabilities in the environment of knowledge economy globalization and stand out in the fierce industry competition. Firstly, data on existing higher education theories and innovation theories are analyzed. Secondly, two companies in the sample data are selected for detailed analysis. Finally, research conclusion and corresponding talent management strategies are presented. The results show that the cumulative contribution value of emp…Read more
  •  6
    Physical Self Matters: How the Dual Nature of Body Image Influences Smart Watch Purchase Intention
    with Teng Wang and Yongqiang Sun
    Frontiers in Psychology 13. 2022.
    To determine the role of physical self in body-involving consumption, we explore how body image influences purchasing intention toward hybrid products with body-involving features. In this study, we establish the dual nature of body image: specifically, body image influences intention to purchase via the perception of utilitarian value and symbolic value. Further, we find a competitive mediation in which positive body image negatively influences purchase intention, while PBI is positively relate…Read more
  •  2
    This study examined the effects of opportunity to learn or the content coverage in mathematics on student mathematics anxiety, problem-solving performance, and mathematics performance. The pathways examining the influences of OTL on student problem-solving performance and mathematics performance via mathematics anxiety were also tested. A sample of 1,676 students from Shanghai-China, and a sample of 1,511 students from the United States who participated in the Programme for International Student…Read more
  •  6
    A Configurational Analysis of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises’ Radical Innovations: The Perspective of Dynamic Capabilities
    with Shuangshuang Tang, Lumeng Wang, Weijing Chen, and Zhiwen Guo
    Frontiers in Psychology 12. 2022.
    Adopting a configurational perspective, this study explored the pathways for small and medium-sized enterprises to achieve high levels of radical innovation. On the basis of dynamic capabilities theory, six causal conditions for radical innovation were identified at both external and internal levels—that is, environmental turbulence and absorptive capacity. The results of a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of 82 Chinese SMEs identified four solutions for high radical innovation. The si…Read more
  •  7
    Our current work seeks to provide direct empirical evidence on whether Chinese international students’ experiences studying abroad promote dialectical thinking. We collected behavioral data from 258 Chinese international students studying in multiple regions. We found that there was a main effect among the four conditions. More specifically, when primed with studying abroad or typical day, participants were more likely to show tolerance for contradiction by deeming both sides of contradictory sc…Read more