In a recent article in the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy , David Ost (1984) claims that patients do not have a right to waive their right to information. He argues that patients cannot make informed rational decisions without full information and thus, a right to waive information would involve a right to avoid one's responsibility to act as an autonomous moral agent. In support of his position, Ost cites a passage from Mill. Yet, a correct interpretation of the passage (...) in question would support one's right to remain uninformed in certain situations. If the information would hurt one's chances for survival or hurt one's ability to make calm, rational decisions, then one not only does not have a duty to find out the information, but one's exercising one's right to remain uninformed may be the only rational course of action to take. Keywords: medical ethics, informed consent, autonomy, information waiver, right, rationality CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This essay discusses the issue of informed consent as it relates not only to physician duty but also to patient duty. The author is particularly concerned with the possibility of battery charges against the physician unless a clear patient duty is articulated. In summary, the author concludes that we can prevent doctors from being forced to commit battery in a way which allows them to make reasonable choices for their patients without being open to the charge of having committed battery. (...) At the same time, we would not allow doctors to abuse this privelege. (shrink)

John Kekes offers a theory of eudaimonism, believing that lives are good "only if they are both personally satisfying and have moral merit". He distinguishes between "the social and personal aspects of the moral tradition. The social aspect is concerned with people's responses to each other in the countless rather impersonal encounters of daily life, [whereas] personal morality is concerned with people pursuing good lives by trying to realize private aspirations and establish enduring intimate relationships". Much of Moral Tradition and (...) Individuality concerns itself with how agents should balance social and personal morality. (shrink)

In a recent discussion of my "Foetuses, Famous Violinists, and the Right to Continued Aid", Mark Strasser argues (in effect) that I misunderstood my own argument and am therefore not entitled to conclude that, assuming the foetus to be a person with the same rights as you or I, abortion (even to end rape-caused pregnancy) cannot be justified in the way Judith Thomson attempted in her wellknown paper.' I don't believe I misunderstood my argument. What I propose to (...) do here is to clarify it, especially the distinction between 'dependence' and 'reliance', and to show that Strasser's criticism is plainly mistaken. (shrink)

Geistlose Selbstsorge -- Der zerebrale Zirkel -- Der Weg nach draussen -- Das Hinzutretende -- Zerstreuung des Geistes -- Möchtegernhirne -- Archaik des Gehirns -- Vergeistigung vs. Verblödung.

The intellectual origins of molecular biology are usually traced back to the 1930s. By contrast, molecular biology acquired a social reality only around 1960. To understand how it came to designate a community of researchers and a professional identity, I examine the creation of the first institutes of molecular biology, which took place around 1960, in four European countries: Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Switzerland. This paper shows how the creation of these institutes was linked to the results of (...) post-war economic reconstruction. Then, it compares how the promoters of these different institutional projects delimited the goals of their discipline, reflected on its history, and suggested how research should be organised. I show how they carefully positioned their new discipline within the emerging national science policy discourse of the 1950s, and aligned it with the current vision of scientific modernity. In particular, I discuss how they articulated the meaning of molecular biology with respect to five common themes: the role of physics in the atomic age, the relations between fundamental research and medical applications, the ‘Americanisation’ of scientific research, the value of science in the reconstruction of national identities, and the drive towards interdisciplinary research. This paper thus demonstrates that beyond the local and national accounts there is a European history of molecular biology. (shrink)

Peter Strassers neues Buch hat eine zentrale These, um welche die teilweise persönlich gehaltenen Reflexionen kreisen: Erst das Weltfremde in uns ermöglicht uns Beheimatung in der Welt. Wer nicht schon einmal selbst so dachte, wird auf die große Idioten-Literatur des Abendlandes verwiesen. Der moderne Idiot ist ein Weltfremder. Aber eben darin wurzelt seine Gabe, die Welt als einen Ort zu erfahren, wo es gerade die sich nahenden, sich der Anschauung öffnenden Phänomene sind, in denen eine letztmögliche Nähe zur Welt aufscheint. (...) Dieses Aufscheinen transzendiert das Faktische, wie es uns die Wissenschaft vermitte. (shrink)

In many cases, the ascription of self-consciousness is uncontroversial. For example, the ability to use the first person pronoun ‘I’ in the right way is obviously related to self-consciousness, although this is not true in all cases. The ascription of self-consciousness to infants, to persons with psychopathological syndromes, or to animals is controversial. In this paper, I will focus on the question of how ascribing self-consciousness to infants can be justified. There are two main subjects relevant to this debate. Firstly, (...) the conceptual question: What notion of self-consciousness should be under discussion regarding infants? In other words: how minimal can a feasible notion of selfconsciousness be? Positions in this debate vary from presuming innate abilities such as the postulation of pre-reflexive self-consciousness (cp. Frank 1991) and the claim that language has to be developed and the right use of the personal pronoun ‘I’ has to be proven (cp. Castaneda 1966). Claiming that self-ascription abilities are an essential condition for all notions of self-consciousness, I begin by analyzing self-ascription abilities using the terminology of the sense of ownership, the sense of agency, and the sense of authorship. Equipped with this clarification, I suggest a minimal notion of self-consciousness that may serve as a foundation of a broader notion of self-consciousness. Secondly, the epistemological question: How can we know when ascribing self-consciousness is justified? This question is combined with an additional problem concerning the ascription of self-consciousness to infants. Infants show impressive behavior that seems to be tied to self-consciousness, but in some cases there are convincing alternative explanations for such behavior. Such alternatives do not refer to self-consciousness and still provide satisfying explanations. Finally, I will discuss several paradigmatic cases regarding the question of whether the ascription of self-consciousness is justified in such cases. (shrink)