Online research in philosophy

This essay exposes how recent attempts at lethal injection reform have involved unethical and illegal research on prisoners. States are varying the doses and types of drugs used, developing methods designed for non-medical professionals to administer medical procedures, and gathering data or making provisions for the gathering of data to learn from executions gone wrong. When individual prisoners are executed under these conditions, states are conducting research on them. Conducting research or experimentation on prisoners in the process of reform is (...) problematic because it violates ethical frameworks and state laws. The Supreme Court has recently taken up the challenge of elucidating the standard for determining the constitutionality of lethal injection. If the Court suggests an approach to lethal injection reform that is akin to some of the more thoughtful and cautious approaches other courts have proposed, the Court's decision may also contravene state laws or ethical precepts regarding research with prisoners. Thus, this paper provides important limitations on the kinds of reform that may be permissible and outlines the open questions that must be addressed before it can be determined whether the risks and uncertainties involved in lethal injection can be remedied. (shrink)

There is evidence of continued food insecurity and malnutrition in Pakistan despite significant progress made in terms of food production in recent years. According to “Vision 2030” of the Planning Commission of Pakistan, about half of the population in the country suffers from absolute to moderate malnutrition, with the most vulnerable being children, women, and elderly among the lowest income group. The Government of Pakistan has been taking a series of policy initiatives and strategic measures to combat food insecurity issues. (...) These range from increasing production to food imports, implementation of poverty reduction strategies, nutritional improvement programs, as well as provision of social safety nets. The article aims to instill some fresh thinking into the debate regarding the challenges of food security. It underscores the limitations of hitherto policy response, and suggests crucial measures to improve the present grim scenario. Policy makers, planners, practitioners, and academicians in countries with comparable socio-political and economic setup can view this discussion as a case study and may apply the findings in their domain accordingly. (shrink)

Many guidelines for international research require that studies be responsive to host community health needs or health priorities. Although responsiveness possesses great intuitive and rhetorical appeal, existing conceptions are confusing and difficult to apply. Not only are there few examples of what research the responsiveness requirement permits and what it rejects, but its application can lead to contradictory results. Because of the practical difficulties in applying responsiveness and the danger that misapplying responsiveness could harm the interests of developing countries, we (...) argue that responsiveness should be refocused in three ways: in terms of (1) who enforces it, (2) under what standard, and (3) in what cases. We conclude that responsiveness should be applied by host country officials at the policy level with the exercise of judgment when externally funded research threatens to displace scarce local resources. (shrink)

South Asia is one of the most densely populated regions of the world, where despite a slow growth, agriculture remains the backbone of rural economy as it employs one half to over 90 percent of the labor force. Both extensive and intensive policy measures for agriculture development to feed the massive population of the region have resulted in land degradation and desertification, water scarcity, pollution from agrochemicals, and loss of agricultural biodiversity. The social and ethical aspects portray even a grimmer (...) picture of the region with growing poverty mainly, amongst small farmers, food scarcity, and overall poor quality of life. This article reviews the historical perspective of agriculture development in the region and gives a panoramic view of the policy initiatives and their environmental as well as social and ethical spin-offs. The aim is to explore the environmental and ethical dimensions of the agricultural development in South Asia and recommend a holistic approach in formulating plans and programs to combat environmental degradation, hunger, and poverty resulting from unsustainable agricultural practices. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 6, Page 22-23, June 2011.

The U.S. Federal regulations allow institutional review boards (IRBs) to approve non-beneficial pediatric research when the risks are a minor increase over minimal, provided that the research is likely to develop generalizable knowledge about the subjects' disorder or condition. This “subjects' condition” requirement is quite controversial; commentators have argued for a variety of interpretations. Despite this considerable disagreement in the literature, there have not been any attempts to apply principles of legal interpretation to determine how the subjects' condition requirement should (...) be understood. (shrink)

The U.S. federal regulations require investigators conducting nonbeneficial research to obtain the assent of children who are capable of providing it. Unfortunately, there has been no analysis of which children are capable of assent or even what abilities ground the capacity to give assent. Why should investigators be required to obtain the positive agreement of some children, but not others, before enrolling them in research that does not offer a compensating potential for direct benefit? We argue that the scope of (...) children's research decision making should be based on the principles of respect for autonomy and nonmaleficence. These principles imply that the threshold for assent should be fixed at 14 years of age, and a dissent requirement should be adopted for all children in the context of nonbeneficial research. (shrink)