Charles Dupras & Vardit Ravitsky
BMJ Blog
Originally posted August 23, 2016
Epigenetics is a recent yet promising field of scientific research. It explores the influence of the biochemical environment (food, toxic pollutants) and the social environment (stress, child abuse, socio-economic status) on the expression of genes, i.e. on whether and how they will switch ‘on’ or ‘off’. Epigenetic modifications can have a significant impact on health and disease later in life. Most surprisingly, it was suggested that some epigenetic variants (or ‘epi-mutations’) acquired during one’s life could be transmitted to offspring, thus having long-term effects on the health of future generations.
Epigenetics is increasingly capturing the attention of social scientists and ethicists, because it brings attention to the importance of environmental exposure for the developing foetus and child as a risk factor for common diseases such as cardiovascular, diabetes, obesity, allergies and cancers. Scholars such as Hannah Landecker, Mark Rothstein and Maurizio Meloni have argued that epigenetics may be used to promote various arguments in ongoing debates on environmental and social justice, as well as intergenerational equity. Some even suggested that epigenetics could lead to novel ways of thinking about moral responsibilities for health.
The blog post is here.
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
New York State Bans Use of Unclaimed Dead as Cadavers Without Consent
By Nina Bernstein
The New York Times
Originally posted August 19, 2016
A bill that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York signed into law this week concerns the dead as much as the living and signals a big change in public attitudes about what one owes the other.
The law bans the use of unclaimed bodies as cadavers without written consent by a spouse or next of kin, or unless the deceased had registered as a body donor. It ends a 162-year-old system that has required city officials to appropriate unclaimed bodies on behalf of medical schools that teach anatomical dissection and mortuary schools that train embalmers.
The state’s medical schools recently announced that they were withdrawing their opposition to the measure, saying they would meet any shortfall in cadavers by expanding their programs for private body donations.
The article is here.
The New York Times
Originally posted August 19, 2016
The law bans the use of unclaimed bodies as cadavers without written consent by a spouse or next of kin, or unless the deceased had registered as a body donor. It ends a 162-year-old system that has required city officials to appropriate unclaimed bodies on behalf of medical schools that teach anatomical dissection and mortuary schools that train embalmers.
The state’s medical schools recently announced that they were withdrawing their opposition to the measure, saying they would meet any shortfall in cadavers by expanding their programs for private body donations.
The article is here.
Supreme Court to Consider Legal Standard Drawn From ‘Of Mice and Men’
Adam Liptak
The New York Times
Originally published August 22, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
Under medical standards from 1992, endorsed in Judge Cochran’s 2004 opinion, Mr. Moore was not intellectually disabled, the appeals court said. The court added that the seven factors listed in the 2004 opinion weighed heavily against Mr. Moore. He had, for instance, worn a wig during the robbery and tried to hide his shotgun in two plastic bags, which prosecutors said was evidence of forethought and planning.
In dissent, Judge Elsa Alcala said the 1992 medical standards used by the majority were “outdated and erroneous.” As for the seven factors, she wrote that “the Lennie standard does not meet the requirements of the federal Constitution.”
“I would set forth a standard,” Judge Alcala wrote, “that does not include any reference to a fictional character.”
The article is here.
The New York Times
Originally published August 22, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
Under medical standards from 1992, endorsed in Judge Cochran’s 2004 opinion, Mr. Moore was not intellectually disabled, the appeals court said. The court added that the seven factors listed in the 2004 opinion weighed heavily against Mr. Moore. He had, for instance, worn a wig during the robbery and tried to hide his shotgun in two plastic bags, which prosecutors said was evidence of forethought and planning.
In dissent, Judge Elsa Alcala said the 1992 medical standards used by the majority were “outdated and erroneous.” As for the seven factors, she wrote that “the Lennie standard does not meet the requirements of the federal Constitution.”
“I would set forth a standard,” Judge Alcala wrote, “that does not include any reference to a fictional character.”
The article is here.
Monday, September 12, 2016
Heads or Tails: The Impact of a Coin Toss on Major Life Decisions and Subsequent Happiness
Steven D. Levitt
NBER Working Paper No. 22487
Issued in August 2016
Abstract
Little is known about whether people make good choices when facing important decisions. This paper reports on a large-scale randomized field experiment in which research subjects having difficulty making a decision flipped a coin to help determine their choice. For important decisions (e.g. quitting a job or ending a relationship), those who make a change (regardless of the outcome of the coin toss) report being substantially happier two months and six months later. This correlation, however, need not reflect a causal impact. To assess causality, I use the outcome of a coin toss. Individuals who are told by the coin toss to make a change are much more likely to make a change and are happier six months later than those who were told by the coin to maintain the status quo. The results of this paper suggest that people may be excessively cautious when facing life-changing choices.
The paper is here.
NBER Working Paper No. 22487
Issued in August 2016
Abstract
Little is known about whether people make good choices when facing important decisions. This paper reports on a large-scale randomized field experiment in which research subjects having difficulty making a decision flipped a coin to help determine their choice. For important decisions (e.g. quitting a job or ending a relationship), those who make a change (regardless of the outcome of the coin toss) report being substantially happier two months and six months later. This correlation, however, need not reflect a causal impact. To assess causality, I use the outcome of a coin toss. Individuals who are told by the coin toss to make a change are much more likely to make a change and are happier six months later than those who were told by the coin to maintain the status quo. The results of this paper suggest that people may be excessively cautious when facing life-changing choices.
The paper is here.
Ethicists unpack the argument for why doping should be kept out of sports
Olivia Goldhill
Quartz
Originally published August 21, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
Bioethicist Thomas Murray, who was chair of Ethical Issues Review Panel for the World Anti-Doping Agency for many years, says that doping “short-circuits the connection between talent, dedication, and performance in sport. It takes control and responsibility away from the athlete and gives it to the chemist or gene therapist or whoever’s manipulating the athlete’s body and physiology.”
Allowing doping would likely lead to a pharmaceutical race, with ever more effective drugs changing athletes’ ability. And even if athletes were able to take drugs safely under the supervision of doctors, Murray points out that still-growing teenagers mimicking their idols would face far greater risks.
Some sporting competitions might decide to allow certain drugs, he says, but to allow doping in the Olympics would make it impossible to compete without the help of pharmaceuticals.
The article is here.
Quartz
Originally published August 21, 2016
Here is an excerpt:
Bioethicist Thomas Murray, who was chair of Ethical Issues Review Panel for the World Anti-Doping Agency for many years, says that doping “short-circuits the connection between talent, dedication, and performance in sport. It takes control and responsibility away from the athlete and gives it to the chemist or gene therapist or whoever’s manipulating the athlete’s body and physiology.”
Allowing doping would likely lead to a pharmaceutical race, with ever more effective drugs changing athletes’ ability. And even if athletes were able to take drugs safely under the supervision of doctors, Murray points out that still-growing teenagers mimicking their idols would face far greater risks.
Some sporting competitions might decide to allow certain drugs, he says, but to allow doping in the Olympics would make it impossible to compete without the help of pharmaceuticals.
The article is here.
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Morality (Book Chapter)
Jonathan Haidt and Selin Kesebir
Handbook of Social Psychology. (2010) 3:III:22.
Here is a portion of the conclusion:
The goal of this chapter was to offer an account of what morality really is, where it came from, how it works, and why McDougall was right to urge social psychologists to make morality one of their fundamental concerns. The chapter used a simple narrative device to make its literature review more intuitively compelling: It told the history of moral psychology as a fall followed by redemption. (This is one of several narrative forms that people spontaneously use when telling the stories of their lives [McAdams, 2006]). To create the sense of a fall, the chapter began by praising the ancients and their virtue - based ethics; it praised some early sociologists and psychologists (e.g., McDougall, Freud, and Durkheim) who had “ thick ” emotional and sociological conceptions of morality; and it praised Darwin for his belief that intergroup competition contributed to the evolution of morality. The chapter then suggested that moral psychology lost these perspectives in the twentieth century as many psychologists followed philosophers and other social scientists in embracing rationalism and methodological individualism. Morality came to be studied primarily as a set of beliefs and cognitive abilities, located in the heads of individuals, which helped individuals to solve quandaries about helping and hurting other individuals. In this narrative, evolutionary theory also lost something important (while gaining much else) when it focused on morality as a set of strategies, coded into the genes of individuals, that helped individuals optimize their decisions about cooperation and defection when interacting with strangers. Both of these losses or “ narrowings ” led many theorists to think that altruistic acts performed toward strangers are the quintessence of morality.
The book chapter is here.
This chapter is an excellent summary for students or those beginning to read on moral psychology.
Handbook of Social Psychology. (2010) 3:III:22.
Here is a portion of the conclusion:
The goal of this chapter was to offer an account of what morality really is, where it came from, how it works, and why McDougall was right to urge social psychologists to make morality one of their fundamental concerns. The chapter used a simple narrative device to make its literature review more intuitively compelling: It told the history of moral psychology as a fall followed by redemption. (This is one of several narrative forms that people spontaneously use when telling the stories of their lives [McAdams, 2006]). To create the sense of a fall, the chapter began by praising the ancients and their virtue - based ethics; it praised some early sociologists and psychologists (e.g., McDougall, Freud, and Durkheim) who had “ thick ” emotional and sociological conceptions of morality; and it praised Darwin for his belief that intergroup competition contributed to the evolution of morality. The chapter then suggested that moral psychology lost these perspectives in the twentieth century as many psychologists followed philosophers and other social scientists in embracing rationalism and methodological individualism. Morality came to be studied primarily as a set of beliefs and cognitive abilities, located in the heads of individuals, which helped individuals to solve quandaries about helping and hurting other individuals. In this narrative, evolutionary theory also lost something important (while gaining much else) when it focused on morality as a set of strategies, coded into the genes of individuals, that helped individuals optimize their decisions about cooperation and defection when interacting with strangers. Both of these losses or “ narrowings ” led many theorists to think that altruistic acts performed toward strangers are the quintessence of morality.
The book chapter is here.
This chapter is an excellent summary for students or those beginning to read on moral psychology.
Saturday, September 10, 2016
Rational and Emotional Sources of Moral Decision-Making: an Evolutionary-Developmental Account
Denton, K.K. & Krebs, D.L.
Evolutionary Psychological Science (2016). pp 1-14.
Abstract
Some scholars have contended that moral decision-making is primarily rational, mediated by controlled, deliberative, and reflective forms of moral reasoning. Others have contended that moral decision-making is primarily emotional, mediated by automatic, affective, and intuitive forms of decision-making. Evidence from several lines of research suggests that people make moral decisions in both of these ways. In this paper, we review psychological and neurological evidence supporting dual-process models of moral decision-making and discuss research that has attempted to identify triggers for rational-reflective and emotional-intuitive processes. We argue that attending to the ways in which brain mechanisms evolved and develop throughout the life span supplies a basis for explaining why people possess the capacity to engage in two forms of moral decision-making, as well as accounting for the attributes that define each type and predicting when the mental mechanisms that mediate each of them will be activated and when one will override the other. We close by acknowledging that neurological research on moral decision-making mechanisms is in its infancy and suggesting that future research should be directed at distinguishing among different types of emotional, intuitive, rational, and reflective processes; refining our knowledge of the brain mechanisms implicated in different forms of moral judgment; and investigating the ways in which these mechanisms interact to produce moral decisions.
The article is here.
Evolutionary Psychological Science (2016). pp 1-14.
Abstract
Some scholars have contended that moral decision-making is primarily rational, mediated by controlled, deliberative, and reflective forms of moral reasoning. Others have contended that moral decision-making is primarily emotional, mediated by automatic, affective, and intuitive forms of decision-making. Evidence from several lines of research suggests that people make moral decisions in both of these ways. In this paper, we review psychological and neurological evidence supporting dual-process models of moral decision-making and discuss research that has attempted to identify triggers for rational-reflective and emotional-intuitive processes. We argue that attending to the ways in which brain mechanisms evolved and develop throughout the life span supplies a basis for explaining why people possess the capacity to engage in two forms of moral decision-making, as well as accounting for the attributes that define each type and predicting when the mental mechanisms that mediate each of them will be activated and when one will override the other. We close by acknowledging that neurological research on moral decision-making mechanisms is in its infancy and suggesting that future research should be directed at distinguishing among different types of emotional, intuitive, rational, and reflective processes; refining our knowledge of the brain mechanisms implicated in different forms of moral judgment; and investigating the ways in which these mechanisms interact to produce moral decisions.
The article is here.
Friday, September 9, 2016
Additional Questions about the Applicability of “False Memory” Research
Kathryn Becker-Blease and Jennifer J. Freyd
Applied Cognitive Psychology, (2016)
DOI: 10.1002/acp.3266
Summary
Brewin and Andrews present a strong case that the results of studies on adults' false memories for childhood events yield small and variable effects of questionable practical significance. We discuss some fundamental limitations of the literature available for this review, highlighting key issues in the operationalization of the term 'false memory', publication bias, and additional variables that have been insufficiently researched. We discuss the implications of these findings in the real world. Ultimately, we conclude that more work is needed in all of these domains, and appreciate the efforts of these authors to further a careful and evidence-based discussion of the issues.
The article is here.
Applied Cognitive Psychology, (2016)
DOI: 10.1002/acp.3266
Summary
Brewin and Andrews present a strong case that the results of studies on adults' false memories for childhood events yield small and variable effects of questionable practical significance. We discuss some fundamental limitations of the literature available for this review, highlighting key issues in the operationalization of the term 'false memory', publication bias, and additional variables that have been insufficiently researched. We discuss the implications of these findings in the real world. Ultimately, we conclude that more work is needed in all of these domains, and appreciate the efforts of these authors to further a careful and evidence-based discussion of the issues.
The article is here.
Aetna Shows Why We Need a Single-Payer System
By Robert Reich
Robert Reich Blog
Originally posted August 16, 2016
The best argument for a single-payer health plan is the recent decision by giant health insurer Aetna to bail out next year from 11 of the 15 states where it sells Obamacare plans.
Aetna’s decision follows similar moves by UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest insurer, and Humana, one of the other giants.
All claim they’re not making enough money because too many people with serious health problems are using the Obamacare exchanges, and not enough healthy people are signing up.
The problem isn’t Obamacare per se. It’s in the structure of private markets for health insurance – which creates powerful incentives to avoid sick people and attract healthy ones. Obamacare is just making the structural problem more obvious.
The entire blog post is here.
Robert Reich Blog
Originally posted August 16, 2016
The best argument for a single-payer health plan is the recent decision by giant health insurer Aetna to bail out next year from 11 of the 15 states where it sells Obamacare plans.
Aetna’s decision follows similar moves by UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest insurer, and Humana, one of the other giants.
All claim they’re not making enough money because too many people with serious health problems are using the Obamacare exchanges, and not enough healthy people are signing up.
The problem isn’t Obamacare per se. It’s in the structure of private markets for health insurance – which creates powerful incentives to avoid sick people and attract healthy ones. Obamacare is just making the structural problem more obvious.
The entire blog post is here.
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