{"title":"Civil Liberties in a Lockdown: The Case of COVID-19.","authors":"Samuel Director, Christopher Freiman","doi":"10.1093/jmp/jhad037","DOIUrl":"10.1093/jmp/jhad037","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In response to the spread of COVID-19, governments across the world, with very few exceptions, have enacted sweeping restrictive lockdown policies that impede citizens' freedom to move, work, and assemble. This paper critically responds to the central arguments for restrictive lockdown legislation. We build our critique on the following assumption: public policy that enjoys virtually unanimous support worldwide should be justified by uncontroversial moral principles. We argue that the virtually unanimous support in favor of restrictive lockdowns is not adequately justified by the arguments given in favor of them. Importantly, this is not to say that states ought not impose restrictive lockdown measures, but rather that the extent of the acceptance of these measures is not proportionate to the strength of the arguments for lockdowns.</p>","PeriodicalId":47377,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medicine and Philosophy","volume":" ","pages":"613-623"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10151463","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Human Right to What Kind of Medicine?","authors":"Kathryn Muyskens","doi":"10.1093/jmp/jhad020","DOIUrl":"10.1093/jmp/jhad020","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The human right to health, insofar as it is widely recognized, is typically thought to include the right to fair access to adequate healthcare, but the operating conception of healthcare in this context has been under-defined. This lack of conceptual clarity has often led in practice to largely Western cultural assumptions about what validly constitutes \"healthcare\" and \"medicine.\" Ethnocentric and parochial assumptions ought to be avoided, lest they give justification to the accusation that universal human rights are mere tools for Western imperial agendas. At the same time, a right to healthcare that is not also explicitly the right to effective healthcare rapidly loses meaning. This paper strives to provide an account of medicine with the flexibility to accommodate cultural difference in forms of practice, while also aiding in the articulation of a minimum for medical systems to meet the standards set out in a human right.</p>","PeriodicalId":47377,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medicine and Philosophy","volume":" ","pages":"577-590"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9400130","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Evictionism, Libertarianism, and Duties of the Fetus.","authors":"Łukasz Dominiak, Igor Wysocki","doi":"10.1093/jmp/jhad036","DOIUrl":"10.1093/jmp/jhad036","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In \"Evictionism and Libertarianism,\" published in this journal, Walter Block defends the view that, although the fetus is a human being with all the rights to its body, it may nonetheless be evicted from the woman's body as a trespasser, provided the pregnancy is unwanted. We argue that this view is untenable: the statement that the unwanted fetus is a trespasser does not follow from the premises that the fetus uninvitedly resides in the woman's body and that the woman is a full self-owner. For this statement to follow, one more statement would have to be true; namely, the woman would have to hold her self-ownership rights specifically against the fetus, and for this to be the case, the fetus would have to have a correlative duty to the woman to abstain from interfering with her body. This statement, however, is false.</p>","PeriodicalId":47377,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medicine and Philosophy","volume":" ","pages":"527-540"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10099595","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Heterogeneity of Bioethics: Discussions of Harm, Abortion, and Conceptual Clarity of Bioethical Terminology","authors":"Ryan Hrabovsky","doi":"10.1093/jmp/jhad032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhad032","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This issue of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy exemplifies the diverse range of topics that fall under the scope of bioethics and the philosophy of medicine. The eight essays in this number challenge many of the underlying assumptions made in the philosophy of medicine, health care, the abortion debate, the nature of harm, disability, the moral status of human beings, and pandemic lockdown procedures.","PeriodicalId":47377,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medicine and Philosophy","volume":"32 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135874510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A New Defense of Brain Death as the Death of the Human Organism.","authors":"Andrew Mcgee, Dale Gardiner, Melanie Jansen","doi":"10.1093/jmp/jhac040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhac040","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper provides a new rationale for equating brain death with the death of the human organism, in light of well-known criticisms made by Alan D Shewmon, Franklin Miller and Robert Truog and a number of other writers. We claim that these criticisms can be answered, but only if we accept that we have slightly redefined the concept of death when equating brain death with death simpliciter. Accordingly, much of the paper defends the legitimacy of redefining death against objections, before turning to the specific task of defending a new rationale for equating brain death with death as slightly redefined.</p>","PeriodicalId":47377,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medicine and Philosophy","volume":"48 5","pages":"434-452"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10601227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Memories without Survival: Personal Identity and the Ascending Reticular Activating System.","authors":"Lukas J Meier","doi":"10.1093/jmp/jhad028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhad028","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Lockean views of personal identity maintain that we are essentially persons who persist diachronically by virtue of being psychologically continuous with our former selves. In this article, I present a novel objection to this variant of psychological accounts, which is based on neurophysiological characteristics of the brain. While the mental states that constitute said psychological continuity reside in the cerebral hemispheres, so that for the former to persist only the upper brain must remain intact, being conscious additionally requires that a structure originating in the brainstem-the ascending reticular activating system-be functional. Hence, there can be situations in which even small brainstem lesions render individuals irreversibly comatose and thus forever preclude access to their mental states, while the neural correlates of the states themselves are retained. In these situations, Lockeans are forced to regard as fulfilled their criterion of diachronic persistence since psychological continuity, as they construe it, is not disrupted. Deeming an entity that is never again going to have any mental experiences to be a person, however, is an untenable position for a psychological account to adopt. In their current form, Lockean views of personal identity are therefore incompatible with human neurophysiology.</p>","PeriodicalId":47377,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medicine and Philosophy","volume":"48 5","pages":"478-491"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10501180/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10257852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Death” and Its Discontents","authors":"Nicholas Sparks","doi":"10.1093/jmp/jhad038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhad038","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract “Death” sits at the center of this issue of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. Each article, in its own fashion, touches on the problems of thinking about the nature of death in the light of contemporary scientific and medical advances. Three articles explicitly center on the ongoing debate over the Uniform Determination of Death Act, and three center on thematic issues surrounding death. Despite the topic, the discussion is lively and thoughtful. After introducing each article and sketching their contours, I offer some closing remarks on a central issue dredged up by these articles: the role of evaluative commitments and other interests in selecting criteria for the determination of death. These articles raise interesting questions about the relationship between the nature of “death” and ethical, epistemic, social-political, and economic values. This further opens up interesting lines of inquiry into medical epistemology. Finally, they broach deep questions about the nature of “function” and the relationship between organic and artificially sustained function.","PeriodicalId":47377,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medicine and Philosophy","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134910836","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is Death Irreversible?","authors":"Nada Gligorov","doi":"10.1093/jmp/jhad027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhad027","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>There are currently two legally established criteria for death: the irreversible cessation of circulation and respiration and the irreversible cessation of neurologic function. Recently, there have been technological developments that could undermine the irreversibility requirement. In this paper, I focus both on whether death should be identified as an irreversible state and on the proper scope of irreversibility in the biological definition of death. In this paper, I tackle the distinction between the commonsense definition of death and the biological definition of death to show that even the commonsense concept of death is specified by biological facts. Resting on this argument, I argue that any definition of death is a posteriori. Thus, irreversibility is part of any definition of death because the actual phenomenon of death is irreversible. In addition, I show that the proper domain of irreversibility in a definition of death is circumscribed by physical possibilities and that irreversibility in the definition of death refers to current possibilities for the reversal of relevant biological processes. I conclude that, despite recent technological advancements, death is still irreversible.</p>","PeriodicalId":47377,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medicine and Philosophy","volume":"48 5","pages":"492-503"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10585059","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Death as the Cessation of an Organism and the Moral Status Alternative.","authors":"Piotr Grzegorz Nowak","doi":"10.1093/jmp/jhad018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhad018","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The mainstream concept of death-the biological one-identifies death with the cessation of an organism. In this article, I challenge the mainstream position, showing that there is no single well-established concept of an organism and no universal concept of death in biological terms. Moreover, some of the biological views on death, if applied in the context of bedside decisions, might imply unacceptable consequences. I argue the moral concept of death-one similar to that of Robert Veatch-overcomes such difficulties. The moral view identifies death with the irreversible cessation of a patient's moral status, that is, a state when she can no longer be harmed or wronged. The death of a patient takes place when she is no longer capable of regaining her consciousness. In this regard, the proposal elaborated herein resembles that of Veatch yet differs from Veatch's original project since it is universal. In essence, it is applicable in the case of other living beings such as animals and plants, provided that they have some moral status.</p>","PeriodicalId":47377,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medicine and Philosophy","volume":"48 5","pages":"504-518"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10501183/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10623356","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alberto Molina-Pérez, James L Bernat, Anne Dalle Ave
{"title":"Inconsistency between the Circulatory and the Brain Criteria of Death in the Uniform Determination of Death Act.","authors":"Alberto Molina-Pérez, James L Bernat, Anne Dalle Ave","doi":"10.1093/jmp/jhad029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhad029","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) provides that \"an individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead.\" We show that the UDDA contains two conflicting interpretations of the phrase \"cessation of functions.\" By one interpretation, what matters for the determination of death is the cessation of spontaneous functions only, regardless of their generation by artificial means. By the other, what matters is the cessation of both spontaneous and artificially supported functions. Because each UDDA criterion uses a different interpretation, the law is conceptually inconsistent. A single consistent interpretation would lead to the conclusion that conscious individuals whose respiratory and circulatory functions are artificially supported are actually dead, or that individuals whose brain is entirely and irreversibly destroyed may be alive. We explore solutions to mitigate the inconsistency.</p>","PeriodicalId":47377,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medicine and Philosophy","volume":"48 5","pages":"422-433"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/73/91/jhad029.PMC10501178.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10623868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}