{"title":"Coming to America: Bioethical Training at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics and the Establishment of Medical Ethics in Germany.","authors":"Mathias Schütz, Felix Sommer","doi":"10.1353/ken.2025.a987090","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ken.2025.a987090","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Between 1987 and 1995, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics held a number of training courses specifically addressing German physicians and scholars engaged in the establishment of medical ethics in West Germany. These courses were linked to the annual Intensive Bioethics Course the institute had been organizing since 1975. During the 1980s, the perspective of bioethical training began to shift toward an international audience. Through the fundraising skills and organizational efforts of Hans-Martin Sass, a German philosopher and senior research scholar at the institute, the focus eventually shifted toward the situation in Germany, where interest in bioethics was emerging but infrastructure and knowledge were lacking. Based on extensive archival research in the US and Germany, this paper retraces the history of German participation in the Kennedy Institute's bioethical training courses and analyzes the impact this experience had on the institute's outlook as well as on the development of German medical ethics.</p>","PeriodicalId":46167,"journal":{"name":"Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal","volume":"35 2","pages":"205-232"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147677651","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Reply to Bernstein, Jayaram, and Hutler's \"Assessing the Liberty-Based Case Against Pandemic Lockdowns\".","authors":"Eric Winsberg","doi":"10.1353/ken.2025.a987089","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ken.2025.a987089","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46167,"journal":{"name":"Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal","volume":"35 2","pages":"197-204"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147677634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"\"We Don't Want You Here\": A Critical Examination of Staring, Disability, and the Inaccessible Environment.","authors":"Natalie Hardy","doi":"10.1353/ken.2025.a978175","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ken.2025.a978175","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Disability scholars generally categorize staring as a stigmatizing action that has negative psychosocial impacts on disabled people. Yet, interestingly, staring is also oftentimes understood as natural, understandable, and is even encouraged in different contexts. In this paper, I first articulate the diverse ways staring is experienced and conceptualized by drawing from general sociological, queer, and disability theories, and I demonstrate that staring itself is a value-neutral action. I argue that staring is experienced particularly negatively by disabled communities because (1) staring that occurs within inaccessible environments reinforces societal sentiments that disabled individuals are unwanted and unvalued, and (2) disabled individuals often lack control over whether and how they are stared at; thus, when staring occurs in a physically inaccessible context, staring perpetuates a loss of control over social experiences. I conclude by articulating how participatory planning as an alternative approach to inclusive design can attenuate the harmful impacts staring has on disabled individuals.</p>","PeriodicalId":46167,"journal":{"name":"Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal","volume":"35 1","pages":"1-26"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145805365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ambiguous Invitations: Nonmaleficence, Uncertainty Attitudes and Public Health Policy.","authors":"Stephen John","doi":"10.1353/ken.2025.a987086","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ken.2025.a987086","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46167,"journal":{"name":"Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal","volume":"35 2","pages":"99-126"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147677648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Assessing the Liberty-Based Case Against Pandemic Lockdowns.","authors":"Justin Bernstein, Athmeya Jayaram, Brian Hutler","doi":"10.1353/ken.2025.a987088","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ken.2025.a987088","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Respecting individual liberty is a foundational principle of both liberal democratic theory and public health ethics. It is not always clear, however, what role liberty should play in evaluating restrictive public health policies such as those implemented by governments during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, a number of scholars argued that an appeal to individual liberty provides a strong argument against restrictive policies such as stay-at-home orders, school and business closures, and gathering restrictions-which we will collectively refer to as \"lockdowns.\" This paper argues that while individual liberty is an important consideration, it does not, on its own, provide a strong argument against pandemic lockdowns. To show as much, we survey some of the most promising and prominent liberty-based arguments against lockdowns. We argue that such arguments either fail or are incomplete. Before concluding, we draw on this discussion to suggest a different liberty-based frame for evaluating pandemic policies. This approach would focus more on what functions liberties are meant to fulfill and whether lockdowns can be designed to preserve those functions-even if they restrict liberty.</p>","PeriodicalId":46167,"journal":{"name":"Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal","volume":"35 2","pages":"163-196"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147677619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Multivalent Environmental and Ecological Justice Reimagined.","authors":"Bridget Pratt","doi":"10.1353/ken.2025.a978177","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ken.2025.a978177","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Climate change and worsening environmental degradation remain the greatest threat of our time. How to address the environmental crisis ethically and equitably is one of the most important questions facing the global community. Conceptions of environmental justice and ecological justice are key sources of guidance on this matter. Yet these conceptions are ill equipped to guide global action. They identify four core dimensions of environmental justice and ecological justice: distribution, recognition, inclusion, and well-being. In this paper, I argue that different ontological (e.g., holism) and experiential (e.g., colonization and coloniality) starting points in the Global South identify additional dimensions-harmony and power-and additional aspects of the recognition dimension that are largely missing from dominant multivalent concepts. I next offer three epistemic reasons why excluding the additional dimensions and aspects from our conception of environmental justice and ecological justice is problematic. I then apply relevant theory from the Global North and South to propose how the power, harmony, and recognition dimensions might be understood or reimagined. I demonstrate that a broadened environmental justice and ecological justice concept identifies certain issues voiced by people from the Global South as injustices, where current mainstream concepts do not. I conclude by considering important objections to the ideas proposed in the paper.</p>","PeriodicalId":46167,"journal":{"name":"Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal","volume":"35 1","pages":"61-98"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145805572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editor's Note, June 2025.","authors":"Quill R Kukla","doi":"10.1353/ken.2025.a987085","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ken.2025.a987085","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46167,"journal":{"name":"Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal","volume":"35 2","pages":"ix-xii"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147677576","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editor's Note, March 2025.","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/ken.2025.a978174","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ken.2025.a978174","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46167,"journal":{"name":"Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal","volume":"35 1","pages":"ix-xi"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145805430","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial as the Gold Standard in Psychedelic Research: Neither Feasible Nor Desirable.","authors":"Daniel Villiger","doi":"10.1353/ken.2025.a978176","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ken.2025.a978176","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Double-blind, randomized, controlled trials (DB-RCT), if designed and conducted well, are widely considered the gold standard in medical research for purposes of establishing causal efficacy. Their logic is compelling: by balancing out all confounding variables through the research design, DB-RCTs are thought to reveal whether a proposed treatment-by virtue of its characteristic constituents-causes therapeutic effects. Many studies on psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) follow this ostensible gold standard and use a DB-RCT design. But several authors have already noted that conducting psychedelic DB-RCTs is particularly challenging: due to the psychoactive effects of psychedelics, participant awareness of condition assignment is likely; this awareness may then interact with response expectancy and experimenter behavior, introducing systematic bias into the trial. For this reason, these authors have suggested ways to rescue DB-RCTs for PAT. This paper takes a different direction. It argues that we should abandon the DB-RCT design as the assumed gold standard in PAT research, because its logic is largely undermined by the intervention(s) in question, and the design in its standard form neglects potentially important aspects of PAT (i.e., extrapharmacological factors and their interaction(s) with the psychedelic). Abandoning DB-RCT opens the door to a more holistic study of PAT, in which DB-RCTs are still useful for certain ends but are considered to produce results that are not per se superior but complementary to those of other research designs.</p>","PeriodicalId":46167,"journal":{"name":"Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal","volume":"35 1","pages":"27-60"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145805694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Relational Autonomy in Nonideal Medical Decision-Making.","authors":"Laura Specker Sullivan","doi":"10.1353/ken.2025.a987087","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/ken.2025.a987087","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Autonomy is a core concept for medical decision-making in the United States. Yet as issues of social justice have been increasingly appreciated by American bioethicists, so has the difficulty of reconciling autonomy with unjust contexts. Bioethicists have turned to the feminist concept of relational autonomy to address these issues, but there is disagreement over its implementation. This paper aims to clarify the relationship between unjust circumstances and respect for autonomy by analyzing the utility of relational autonomy for medical decision-making in nonideal social contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":46167,"journal":{"name":"Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal","volume":"35 2","pages":"127-161"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147677609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}