INTRODUCTION In recent time there has been ample discussion concerning censorship of research conducted in two labs involved in avian influenza virus research. Much of the debate has centered on the question whether the methods and results should reach to open disclosure given the "dual use" nature of this research which can be used for nefarious purposes. METHODS This paper reviews the discu...

This paper discusses the moral relevance of accounting for various personal characteristics when prioritising between groups of patients. After a review of the results from empirical studies, we discuss the ethical reasons which might explain-and justify-the views expressed in these studies. The paper develops a general framework based upon the causes of ill health and the consequences of treat...

Organisations increasingly use digital nudges to influence their workforces’ behaviour without coercion or incentives. This can expose employees arbitrary domination by infringing on autonomy through manipulation and indoctrination. Nudges might furthermore give rise the phenomenon of “organised immaturity.” Adopting a balanced approach between overly optimistic dystopian standpoints, I propose...

Are hiring decisions affected by knowledge that a job applicant was previously laid off? We expected decisional biases to be linked with the motivational tendency to believe that society is fair and outcomes are just and deserved (hereafter, system justifying beliefs [SJBs]). Indeed, hiring decisions were more likely to disadvantage a laid off applicant as SJBs increased both when detailed job ...

Harsanyi defends utilitarianism by means of an axiomatic proof and by what he calls the ‘equiprobability model’. Both justifications of utilitarianism aim to show that utilitarian ethics can be derived from Bayesian rationality and some weak moral constraints on the reasoning of rational agents. I argue that, from the perspective of Bayesian agents, one of these constraints, the impersonality c...

What does it mean to think about the ethics of health promotion? When most of us think ‘ethics’ we think of the Human Research Ethics Committee applications required for research projects. But I’m thinking of something quite different here: the ethics of health promotion practice. Health promotion ethics is an attempt to answer questions such as: Can we provide a moral justification for what we...