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Journal of Medical Ethics Oct 2001This paper argues that the central issue in the abortion debate has not changed since 1967 when the English parliament enacted the Abortion Act. That central issue... (Review)
Review
This paper argues that the central issue in the abortion debate has not changed since 1967 when the English parliament enacted the Abortion Act. That central issue concerns the moral status of the human fetus. The debate here is not, it is argued, primarily a moral debate, but rather a metaphysical debate and/or a theological debate--though one with massive moral implications. It concerns the nature and attributes that an entity requires to have "full moral standing" or "moral inviolability" including a "right to life". It concerns the question when, in its development from newly fertilised ovum to unequivocally mature, autonomous morally inviolable person does a human being acquire that nature and those attributes, and thus a "right to life". The paper briefly reviews standard answers to these questions, outlining some problems associated with each. Finally there is a brief discussion of one way in which the abortion debate has changed since 1967--notably in the increasingly vociferous claim, especially from disability rights sectors, that abortion on grounds of fetal abnormality implies contempt for and rejection of disabled people--a claim that is rebutted.
Topics: Abortion, Eugenic; Abortion, Induced; Abortion, Legal; Awareness; Beginning of Human Life; Brain; Ethical Analysis; Female; Fetus; Humans; Morals; Personhood; Pregnancy; United Kingdom; Value of Life
PubMed: 11574651
DOI: 10.1136/jme.27.suppl_2.ii5 -
Journal of Medical Ethics Dec 1983
Topics: Beginning of Human Life; Ethical Analysis; Ethics, Medical; Fertilization in Vitro; Humans; Life; Moral Obligations; Morals; Personhood; Religion and Medicine
PubMed: 6668582
DOI: 10.1136/jme.9.4.187 -
Social Science & Medicine (1982) Oct 2016Data fabrication, incorrect collection strategies and poor data management, are considered detrimental to high-quality scientific research. While poor data management...
Data fabrication, incorrect collection strategies and poor data management, are considered detrimental to high-quality scientific research. While poor data management have been occasionally excused, fabrication constitutes a cardinal sin - scientific misconduct. Scholarly examinations of fabrication usually seek to expose and capture its prevalence and, less frequently, its consequences and causes. Most accounts centre on high-income countries, individual senior researchers and scientists who are portrayed as irrational, immoral or deceptive. We argue that such accounts contain limitations in overlooking data collected in 'the field', in low-income countries, by junior researchers and non-scientists. Furthermore, the processes and motivations for fabrication and subversive practices are under-examined. Drawing on two separate ethnographies, conducted in 2004-2009 in medical research projects in sub-Saharan Africa, this paper investigates fabrication among fieldworkers using data from observations and informal conversations, 68 interviews and 7 Focus Group Discussions involving diverse stakeholders. Based on an interpretative approach, we examined fieldworkers' accounts that fabrications were motivated by irreconcilable moral concerns, faltering morale resulting from poor management, and inadequate institutional support. To fieldworkers, data fabrication constituted a 'tool' for managing their quotidian challenges. Fabrications ranged from active to passive acts, to subvert, resist and readdress tensions deriving from employment inequalities and challenging socio-economic conditions. We show that geographical and hierarchical distance between high-ranking research actors and fieldworkers in contemporary configurations of international medical research can compartmentalise, and ultimately undermine, the relationships necessary to produce high-quality data. In focusing on fieldworkers, we argue for the inclusion of wide-ranging perspectives in examinations of data fabrication.
Topics: Africa South of the Sahara; Biomedical Research; Black People; Data Accuracy; Focus Groups; Health Personnel; Humans; Morale; Motivation; Qualitative Research; Research Personnel
PubMed: 27566044
DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.08.019 -
Journal of Diabetes and Its... 2013To review the most important moral challenges following from the widespread use of bariatric surgery for type 2 diabetes for patients with BMI <35kg/m(2), although high... (Review)
Review
AIM
To review the most important moral challenges following from the widespread use of bariatric surgery for type 2 diabetes for patients with BMI <35kg/m(2), although high quality evidence for its short and long term effectiveness and safety is limited.
METHODS
Extensive literature search to identify and analyze morally relevant issues. A question based method in ethics was applied to facilitate assessment and decision making.
RESULTS
Several important moral issues were identified: assessing and informing about safety, patient outcomes, and stakeholder interests; acquiring valid informed consent; defining and selecting outcome measures; stigmatization and discrimination of the patient group, as well as providing just distribution of health care. The main sources of these challenges are lack of high quality evidence, disagreement on clinical indications and endpoints, and the disciplining of human behavior by surgical interventions.
CONCLUSION
A lack of high quality evidence on the effect of bariatric surgery for the treatment of T2DM in patients with BMI<35/kg/m(2) poses a wide variety of moral challenges, which are important for decisions on the individual patient level, on the management level, and on the health policy making level. Strong preferences among surgeons and patients may hamper high quality research.
Topics: Bariatric Surgery; Body Mass Index; Conflict of Interest; Decision Making; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2; Ethics, Medical; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Humans; Informed Consent; Morals; Surveys and Questionnaires
PubMed: 24028746
DOI: 10.1016/j.jdiacomp.2013.07.006 -
The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy Aug 2022Prompted by recent comments on the moral authority of dialogic consensus, we argue that consensus, specifically dialogic consensus, possesses a unique form of moral...
Prompted by recent comments on the moral authority of dialogic consensus, we argue that consensus, specifically dialogic consensus, possesses a unique form of moral authority. Given our multicultural era and its plurality of values, we contend that traditional ethical frameworks or principles derived from them cannot be viewed substantively. Both philosophers and clinicians prioritize the need for a decision to be morally justifiable, and also for the decision to be action-guiding. We argue that, especially against the background of our pluralistic society, it is only via unforced dialogue and properly founded argumentation, aiming for consensus, that we can ascribe rightness or wrongness in a normative fashion to dilemmatic situations. We argue that both the process of dialogue, properly constituted, and the consensual outcome itself have moral authority vested within them. Finally, we argue that the consensual decision made is able to withstand moral scrutiny and is action-guiding, without claiming absolute moral authority in other contexts.
Topics: Consensus; Cultural Diversity; Humans; Morals
PubMed: 35751628
DOI: 10.1093/jmp/jhac007 -
Scientific Reports Apr 2023Given its centrality in scholarly and popular discourse, morality should be expected to figure prominently in everyday talk. We test this expectation by examining the...
Given its centrality in scholarly and popular discourse, morality should be expected to figure prominently in everyday talk. We test this expectation by examining the frequency of moral content in three contexts, using three methods: (a) Participants' subjective frequency estimates (N = 581); (b) Human content analysis of unobtrusively recorded in-person interactions (N = 542 participants; n = 50,961 observations); and (c) Computational content analysis of Facebook posts (N = 3822 participants; n = 111,886 observations). In their self-reports, participants estimated that 21.5% of their interactions touched on morality (Study 1), but objectively, only 4.7% of recorded conversational samples (Study 2) and 2.2% of Facebook posts (Study 3) contained moral content. Collectively, these findings suggest that morality may be far less prominent in everyday life than scholarly and popular discourse, and laypeople, presume.
Topics: Humans; Morals; Communication; Social Networking; Self Report
PubMed: 37045974
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-32711-4 -
New Directions For Child and Adolescent... Nov 2022This study coordinates moral value development in adolescence, parenting style, and gender with issues of stability and specificity. The primary research question asked...
This study coordinates moral value development in adolescence, parenting style, and gender with issues of stability and specificity. The primary research question asked whether parenting styles of mothers and fathers influence the development of adolescent moral values, and secondary research questions asked whether adolescent moral values were stable and whether gender moderated predictive relations of parenting styles and adolescent moral values. At 14 and 18 years, a sample of 246 adolescents completed the Sociomoral Reflection Objective Measure - Short Form; at 14 years, mothers and fathers self-reported their parenting styles using the Parental Authority Questionnaire. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses established a 2-factor model of adolescent moral values across the two ages: Life and Social Contract captured prosocial aspects of morality that are left to individual choice, and Law and Social Order captured acts that are legally or morally obligatory for individuals to perform. Structural equation modeling investigated relations between parental parenting styles and the two adolescent moral value factors, with adolescent age, gender, and family SES as covariates. Both moral values factors had high stabilities across the 4-year period. Mothers' authoritarian parenting at 14 years, but not their authoritative or permissive parenting, negatively predicted Life and Social Contract moral values, but not Law and Social Order, in adolescents at 18 years, more so for boys. Fathers' parenting styles did not predict adolescents' moral values at 18 years. Girls and adolescents from higher-SES families had higher Life and Social Contract moral values at 14 years; boys experienced more increases in Life and Social Contract moral values from 14 to 18 years than girls. Stability and parental predictive validity of moral values for adolescence are discussed.
Topics: Male; Female; Adolescent; Humans; Parenting; Mothers; Parents; Morals; Fathers; Parent-Child Relations
PubMed: 36314351
DOI: 10.1002/cad.20488 -
Journal of Medical Ethics May 2006Reproductive autonomy is central to women's welfare both because childbearing takes place in women's bodies and because they are generally expected to take primary... (Review)
Review
Reproductive autonomy is central to women's welfare both because childbearing takes place in women's bodies and because they are generally expected to take primary responsibility for child rearing. In 2005, the factors that influence their autonomy most strongly are poverty and belief systems that devalue such autonomy. Unfortunately, such autonomy is a low priority for most societies, or is anathema to their belief systems altogether. This situation is doubly sad because women's reproductive autonomy is intrinsically valuable for women and also instrumentally valuable for the welfare of humankind. This paper takes for granted the moral and practical necessity of such autonomy and digs deeper into the question of what such a commitment might entail, focusing on the mid-level policy making that, at least in the US and Canada, plays a significant role in shaping women's options. This paper examines a large teaching hospital's policy on reduction of multifetal pregnancies. The policy permits reduction of triplets to twins, but not twins to a singleton. As there is no morally relevant difference between these two types of reduction, it is evident that inappropriate medicalisation can still limit women's autonomy in undesirable ways.
Topics: Abortion, Therapeutic; Attitude to Health; Culture; Female; Feminism; Health Policy; Humans; Morals; Personal Autonomy; Pregnancy; Pregnancy, Multiple; Reproduction; Reproductive Techniques, Assisted; Risk Factors; Women
PubMed: 16648280
DOI: 10.1136/jme.2004.013193 -
Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin Apr 2018The present research examines the reputational consequences of generalized trust. High-trust individuals are seen as moral and sociable, but not necessarily competent....
The present research examines the reputational consequences of generalized trust. High-trust individuals are seen as moral and sociable, but not necessarily competent. When controlling for other traits, there is a negative relationship between trust and perceived competence (Studies 1 and 2). Compared with optimism, generalized trust has stronger effects on morality and sociability (Study 2). Furthermore, people judge those who do not discriminate between trustworthy and untrustworthy groups (unconditional trustors) more negatively than those who only trust groups that are, in fact, trustworthy (conditional trustors). Unconditional trust and unconditional distrust are both viewed negatively (Study 3), even after controlling for attitudinal similarity (Study 4). Critically, both generalized trust and discriminant ability (i.e., conditional trust) have independent reputational benefits (Study 5). These studies suggest that generalized trust plays an important role in how we perceive and judge others.
Topics: Adult; Female; Humans; Male; Morals; Optimism; Social Behavior; Social Perception; Trust
PubMed: 29251247
DOI: 10.1177/0146167217742886 -
Clinical Child and Family Psychology... Jun 2023Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for conduct problems in children and adolescents aims to decrease behaviors which may be considered moral transgressions (e.g.,... (Review)
Review
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for conduct problems in children and adolescents aims to decrease behaviors which may be considered moral transgressions (e.g., aggressive and antisocial behavior) and to increase behaviors that benefit others (e.g., helping, comforting). However, the moral aspects underlying these behaviors have received relatively little attention. In view of increasing the effectiveness of CBT for conduct problems, insights into morality and empathy based on studies from developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience are reviewed and integrated into a previously proposed model of social problem-solving (Matthys & Schutter, Clin Child Fam Psychol Rev 25:552-572, 2022). Specifically, this narrative review discusses developmental psychology studies on normative beliefs in support of aggression and antisocial behavior, clarification of goals, and empathy. These studies are complemented by cognitive neuroscience research on harm perception and moral thinking, harm perception and empathy, others' beliefs and intentions, and response outcome learning and decision-making. A functional integration of moral thinking and empathy into social problem-solving in group CBT may contribute to the acceptance of morality-related issues by children and adolescents with conduct problems.
Topics: Humans; Child; Adolescent; Empathy; Morals; Aggression; Problem Behavior
PubMed: 36905479
DOI: 10.1007/s10567-023-00429-4