Bioethics最新文献

Zohar Lederman critically assesses the special protections afforded to hospitals under international humanitarian law, arguing that the conditions for revoking immunity are overly permissive and fail to safeguard medical facilities. Framing his argument within a conventionalist approach-where legal norms reflect historically refined moral principles-he neglects a central requirement of conventionalist ethics: explaining how such laws and conventions acquire normative authority. This omission produces internal inconsistencies that render his conclusions unpersuasive and risk making a strategically significant military operations morally impermissible. Furthermore, a restrictive interpretation of civilian immunity may create perverse incentives, encouraging rogue actors to exploit civilian infrastructure and exposing the very patients that these protections aim to shield to greater harm.

Genome editing in human embryos could raise new ethical issues by changing future people's narrative and numerical identity. Most philosophers agree that some genetic modifications would have larger effects on identity than others, but they disagree on what criteria might explain these differences and have not supported their claims experimentally. We recruited 416 Americans through the crowdsourcing website Mechanical Turk. Participants were presented with 30 genetic modifications commonly discussed in bioethics and completed a questionnaire about how each modification might affect future people's narrative identity and social treatment. Perceived effects of genome editing on narrative identity correlate moderately with effects on social treatment, suggesting a large role for social construction. The largest changes to identity were associated with changing biological sex, enhancing intelligence, adding abilities from other species and introducing or preventing deafness. The smallest changes to identity were from making people right-handed, lowering the need for sleep, preventing dementia and changing eye or hair colour. Modifications of the same characteristic in opposite directions, such as making someone more or less aggressive, generally had significantly different effects on societal treatment but not on narrative identity. Specifying gender by describing the genetically modified person as a 'son' or 'daughter' did not have significant effects. These findings offer a new direction for research on genome editing and the identity of genetically modified people.

In precision medicine, digital twins-virtual models of patients created using personalized data and advanced machine learning-are potentially changing healthcare by predicting health outcomes and guiding medical decisions. However, their use raises complex ethical questions, particularly concerning their relationship to human dignity. Patients often regard dignity as central to their healthcare experience, and failing to incorporate this principle into the design and application of digital twins risks undermining personal autonomy, misusing sensitive data, eroding patient-provider trust, and creating broader ethical challenges. This paper argues that digital twins are not mere data sets or predictive tools, but symbolic extensions of the dignity of the individuals they represent. Using David Kirchhoffer's multidimensional framework of human dignity, this study examines how digital twins engage with both absolute (inherent) and contingent (socially constructed) dimensions of dignity. The analysis begins by exploring the multidimensional concept of human dignity, followed by a discussion of how digital twins embody these dimensions, illustrated through examples such as digital brain twins, posthumous digital representations, and disability contexts. Finally, the paper addresses the ethical implications of these findings, emphasizing the moral responsibilities of researchers, developers, and clinicians to treat digital twins as representations of patient dignity, thereby ensuring these technologies advance healthcare without compromising the fundamental respect owed to every individual.

Dual use research of concern (DURC) refers to research conducted for legitimate scientific purposes that could also be misused to pose a significant threat to public health and safety, agricultural crops and other plants, animals, the environment, or national security. Scant discussion of bioethics in relation to DURC has taken place, with even less attention to DURC within a global bioethics framework. Herein, we demonstrate the connections of global bioethics-due to globalization, solidarity and cooperation, the precautionary principle, and collective consent-to DURC and present a number of questions that the field can help clarify.

It is plausible that time of birth affects one's prospects for wellbeing. Being born during a war or recession might have a negative impact on early life and lifetime wellbeing. In natural reproduction, delaying conception does not result in the same child being born later, but rather a different child altogether; therefore, prospective parents cannot harm/benefit their children by choosing their time of birth. However, we argue that for prospective parents undergoing the IVF process, things are different. Since it is possible to freeze and store embryos indefinitely before implantation, parents can choose their child's time of birth. Because certain birth timings may better support wellbeing, this introduces the possibility of repro-timing harms and benefits. This paper explores this new concept by outlining its theoretical assumptions and examining the moral reasons prospective parents in IVF might have for delaying implantation in the short, medium, and long term.

Solidarity has emerged as a vital concept in bioethics. In recent years, the concept of solidarity has transcended domestic boundaries, with its rhetorical power being leveraged across diverse global health contexts. However, despite its prominence in bioethics and its rhetorical use in global health, health solidarity remains largely confined to domestic contexts. This paper fills this gap by exploring the possibility of extending health solidarity on a global level. Rather than pursuing a singular, unitary concept, I propose to conceptualize global health solidarity (GHS) with a multidimensional framework that encompasses four essential modes: prudential, moral, sociopolitical, and institutional. The prudential mode provides a compelling foundation for GHS through self-interested motivations, emphasizing global health interdependence. The moral mode frames GHS as morally right or good, grounded in relational personhood, functioning either as a duty or a virtue. The sociopolitical mode conceptualizes GHS as a politically significant, prosocial phenomenon in pursuing liberation and confronting injustices, enabling project-based collaboration beyond identity boundaries. The institutional mode formalizes GHS through established structures, shaping global bioethics frameworks and health governance systems. Recognizing these diverse sources, contexts, and practices of solidarity, the multidimensional framework offers a comprehensive conceptual map for understanding and operationalizing GHS. It provides both analytical clarity and practical guidance for navigating solidarity-based practices in global health contexts. When compared with established frameworks, such as global health justice, global health governance, global health activism, and global health security, GHS provides distinct added value and deserves a more fundamental place in the current global health discourse.

Various authors, including myself, have argued that happiness and morality operate in a circularly supportive relationship. In this paper, love will be added to this relationship. The new triple correlation will be explored through the following lens: not only do love and happiness reinforce moral action, but they appear to be in a triple circularly supportive relationship. Moral behavior is frequently grounded in love; love encourages prosocial behavior; prosocial behavior increases happiness; happiness, in turn, enhances the inclination of most people to act morally most of the time. Argued from the opposite direction: happiness tends to encourage prosocial behavior in most people most of the time; prosocial behavior is conducive to the development of loving relationships; love induces us to behave morally toward the people we love. The argument presented here will also propose that this triple circular reinforcement can be significantly deepened and sustained through a careful use of love-enhancing substances, aided by guided meditation—particularly in the case of the psychedelic psilocybin. It will be concluded that humans will be motivated to use love drugs because they tend to increase their happiness. Consequently, a voluntary use of love drugs is a more effective means of moral (bio-)enhancement than is the prevention of “ultimate harm” that is based on compulsory moral enhancement.