Background There is broad international agreement from clinicians and academics that healthcare rationing should be undertaken as explicitly as possible, and the BMA have publicly supported the call for more accountable priority setting for some time. However, studies in the UK and elsewhere suggest that clinicians experience a number of barriers to rationing openly, and the information needs of patients at the point of provision are largely unknown. Methodology In-depth interviews were undertaken with NHS professionals working at the community level (...) of provision, and with patients and professionals receiving or providing treatment for morbid obesity and breast cancer (n=52). Results Nearly all patients wanted to know about healthcare rationing and had high expectations of their clinical professionals to provide all relevant information about treatment options. However, professionals did not always understand these information requirements, and cases of implicit rationing were common. The existence of relevant national guidance was not always known about, meaning that patients were often reliant on other sources of information about treatment options, which included the popular media, the internet, patient advocacy groups and informal networks of support. Discussion Clinical professionals need to understand patients' need for detailed information when it comes to rationing, and to understand that they are the main gateway for this to be provided. However, disclosure could be distressing for both patients and professionals, and thus the most sensitive and acceptable ways to make this information available requires further investigation. (shrink)

Meat is a multi-billion-dollar industry that relies on people performing risky physical work inside meat-processing facilities over long shifts in close proximity. These workers are socially disempowered, and many are members of groups beset by historic and ongoing structural discrimination. The combination of working conditions and worker characteristics facilitate the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Workers have been expected to put their health and lives at risk during the pandemic because of government and industry pressures to keep (...) this “essential industry” producing. Numerous interventions can significantly reduce the risks to workers and their communities; however, the industry’s implementation has been sporadic and inconsistent. With a focus on the U.S. context, this paper offers an ethical framework for infection prevention and control recommendations grounded in public health values of health and safety, interdependence and solidarity, and health equity and justice, with particular attention to considerations of reciprocity, equitable burden sharing, harm reduction, and health promotion. Meat-processing workers are owed an approach that protects their health relative to the risks of harms to them, their families, and their communities. Sacrifices from businesses benefitting financially from essential industry status are ethically warranted and should acknowledge the risks assumed by workers in the context of existing structural inequities. (shrink)

The prospect of using genome technologies to modify the human germline has raised profound moral disagreement but also emphasizes the need for wide-ranging discussion and a well-informed policy response. The Hinxton Group brought together scientists, ethicists, policymakers, and journal editors for an international, interdisciplinary meeting on this subject. This consensus statement formulated by the group calls for support of genome editing research and the development of a scientific roadmap for safety and efficacy; recognizes the ethical challenges involved in clinical reproductive (...) applications of genome editing but, importantly, rejects the idea that human reproductive germline modification is necessarily morally unacceptable; and highlights the importance of meaningful engagement in discussions of genome editing and the development of regulation and oversight mechanisms to govern future uses of such technologies. (shrink)

In _Beyond Animal Rights_, Josephine Donovan and Carol J. Adams introduced feminist "ethic of care" theory into philosophical discussions of the treatment of animals. In this new volume, seven essays from _Beyond Animal Rights_ are joined by nine new articles-most of which were written in response to that book-and a new introduction that situates feminist animal care theory within feminist theory and the larger debate over animal rights. Contributors critique theorists' reliance on natural rights doctrine and utilitarianism, which, they (...) suggest, have a masculine bias. They argue for ethical attentiveness and sympathy in our relationships with animals and propose a link between the continuing subjugation of women and the human domination of nature. Beginning with the earliest articulation of the idea in the mid-1980s and continuing to the theory's most recent revisions, this volume presents the most complete portrait of the evolution of the feminist-care tradition. (shrink)

Transdisciplinary research knits together knowledge from diverse epistemic communities in addressing social-environmental challenges, such as biodiversity loss, climate crises, food insecurity, and public health. This paper reflects on the roles of philosophy of science in transdisciplinary research while focusing on Indigenous and other subaltern forms of knowledge. We offer a critical assessment of demarcationist approaches in philosophy of science and outline a constructive alternative of transdisciplinary philosophy of science. While a demarcationist focus obscures the complex relations between epistemic communities, transdisciplinary (...) philosophy of science provides resources for meeting epistemic and political challenges of collaborative knowledge production. (shrink)

Contains eight contributions which extend feminist ethic-of-care theory to the issue of animal well-being. As a group, the essays aim to suggest ways that theorists can move beyond the notion of animal rights to establish care as a basis for the ethical treatment of animals. Annotation c. by Book.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the relationship between ethical reasoning and gender and occupation among a group of male and female nurses and doctors. DESIGN: Partialist and impartialist forms of ethical reasoning were defined and singled out as being central to the difference between what is known as the "care" moral orientation (Gilligan) and the "justice" orientation (Kohlberg). A structured questionnaire based on four hypothetical moral dilemmas involving combinations of (health care) professional, non-professional, life-threatening and non-life-threatening situations, was piloted and then mailed (...) to a randomly selected sample of doctors and nurses. SETTING: 400 doctors from Victoria, and 200 doctors and 400 nurses from New South Wales. RESULTS: 178 doctors and 122 nurses returned completed questionnaires. 115 doctors were male, 61 female; 50 nurses were male and 72 were female. It was hypothesised that there would be an association between feminine subjects and partialist reasoning and masculine subjects and impartialist reasoning. It was also hypothesised that nurses would adopt a partialist approach to reasoning and doctors an impartialist approach. No relationship between any of these variables was observed. (shrink)

Throughout his life Karl Rahner wrote on saints in the church, both official (canonized) and unofficial. This essay first considers his major essays from the conciliar period, focusing on the question why and how we can existentially venerate the saints and drawing on his theology of God as Holy Mystery, Christ as redeeming Mediator between humanity and God, and the unity of the love of God and of the neighbor. A second section recalls earlier writings such as “The Church of (...) Sinners’ (1947) and “The Church of the Saints” (1955) that anticipated his mature position. Later developments in his thought are then considered, with special attention to his fuller use of the concept of solidarity in its ontological and theological depth. Finally Rahner’s original diagnosis of the relationship of believers to their saints is tested against more recent developments in devotion to the saints. (shrink)

Throughout his life Karl Rahner wrote on saints in the church, both official (canonized) and unofficial. This essay first considers his major essays from the conciliar period, focusing on the question why and how we can existentially venerate the saints and drawing on his theology of God as Holy Mystery, Christ as redeeming Mediator between humanity and God, and the unity of the love of God and of the neighbor. A second section recalls earlier writings such as “The Church of (...) Sinners’ (1947) and “The Church of the Saints” (1955) that anticipated his mature position. Later developments in his thought are then considered, with special attention to his fuller use of the concept of solidarity in its ontological and theological depth. Finally Rahner’s original diagnosis of the relationship of believers to their saints is tested against more recent developments in devotion to the saints. (shrink)

Reflection on the encounter with theologians as significant as Rahner and Balthasar can lead to a new appreciation for their personal and ecclesial influences. Each saw his work not as a final system but as a limited and relative contribution to the Church’s theology. While Rahner took a concretely dialectical approach to transcendence in history, Balthasar’s cultural theology has a dramatic center of gravity, most obviously in his great final trilogy. For all the difference between their respective horizons, however, both (...) theologians remained fundamentally rooted in the spirituality of Ignatius of Loyola. (shrink)

Reflection on the encounter with theologians as significant as Rahner and Balthasar can lead to a new appreciation for their personal and ecclesial influences. Each saw his work not as a final system but as a limited and relative contribution to the Church’s theology. While Rahner took a concretely dialectical approach to transcendence in history, Balthasar’s cultural theology has a dramatic center of gravity, most obviously in his great final trilogy. For all the difference between their respective horizons, however, both (...) theologians remained fundamentally rooted in the spirituality of Ignatius of Loyola. (shrink)

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