Ethno-racial categorisations for biomedical studies: the fair selection of research participants and population stratification.

We argue that there are neither scientific nor social reasons to require gathering ethno-racial data, as defined in the US legal regulations if researchers have no prior hypotheses as to how to connect this type of categorisation of human participants of clinical trials with any mechanisms that could explain alleged interracial health differences and guide treatment choice. Although we agree with the normative perspective embedded in the calls for the fair selection of participants for biomedical research, we demonstrate that current attempts to provide and elucidate the criteria for the fair selection of participants, in particular, taking into account ethno-racial categories, overlook important epistemic and normative challenges to implement the results of such race-sorting requirements. We discuss existing arguments for and against gathering ethno-racial statistics for biomedical research and present a new one that refers to the assumption that prediction is epistemically superior to accommodation.

Towards the multileveled and processual conceptualisation of racialised individuals in biomedical research.

In this paper, we discuss the processes of racialisation on the example of biomedical research. We argue that applying the concept of racialisation in biomedical research can be much more precise, informative and suitable than currently used categories, such as race and ethnicity. For this purpose, we construct a model of the different processes affecting and co-shaping the racialisation of an individual, and consider these in relation to biomedical research, particularly to studies on hypertension.

Reductionist methodology and the ambiguity of the categories of race and ethnicity in biomedical research: an exploratory study of recent evidence.

In this article, we analyse how researchers use the categories of race and ethnicity with reference to genetics and genomics. We show that there is still considerable conceptual "messiness" (despite the wide-ranging and popular debate on the subject) when it comes to the use of ethnoracial categories in genetics and genomics that among other things makes it difficult to properly compare and interpret research using ethnoracial categories, as well as draw conclusions from them. Finally, we briefly reconstruct some of the biases of reductionism to which geneticists (as well as other researchers referring to genetic methods and explanations) are particularly exposed to, and we analyse the problem in the context of the biologization of ethnoracial categories.

Coordination and expertise foster legal textualism.

A cross-cultural survey experiment revealed a dominant tendency to rely on a rule's letter over its spirit when deciding which behaviors violate the rule. This tendency varied markedly across ( = 15) countries, owing to variation in the impact of moral appraisals on judgments of rule violation. Compared with laypeople, legal experts were more inclined to disregard their moral evaluations of the acts altogether and consequently exhibited stronger textualist tendencies.

Rational framing effects and morally valid reasons.

I argue that the scope of may be broader than Bermúdez assumes. Even in many "canonical experiments," the explanation of the judgment reversals or shifts may refer to reasons, including moral ones. Referring to the Asian disease paradigm (ADP), I describe how non-consequentialist reasons related to fairness and the distinction between doing and allowing may help explain and justify the typical pattern of choices in the cases like ADP.

Value choices in European COVID-19 vaccination schedules: how vaccination prioritization differs from other forms of priority setting.

With the limited initial availability of COVID-19 vaccines in the first months of 2021, decision-makers had to determine the order in which different groups were prioritized. Our aim was to find out what normative approaches to the allocation of scarce preventive resources were embedded in the national COVID-19 vaccination schedules. We systematically reviewed and compared prioritization regulations in 27 members of the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Israel.

Half a century of bioethics and philosophy of medicine: A topic-modeling study.

Topic modeling-a text-mining technique often used to uncover thematic structures in large collections of texts-has been increasingly frequently used in the context of the analysis of scholarly output. In this study, we construct a corpus of 19,488 texts published since 1971 in seven leading journals in the field of bioethics and philosophy of medicine, and we use a machine learning algorithm to identify almost 100 topics representing distinct themes of interest in the field. On the basis of intertopic correlations, we group the content-based topics into eight clusters, thus providing a novel, fine-grained intellectual map of bioethics and philosophy of medicine.

Moral uncertainty in bioethical argumentation: a new understanding of the pro-life view on early human embryos.

In this article, I present a new interpretation of the pro-life view on the status of early human embryos. In my understanding, this position is based not on presumptions about the ontological status of embryos and their developmental capabilities but on the specific criteria of rational decisions under uncertainty and on a cautious response to the ambiguous status of embryos. This view, which uses the decision theory model of moral reasoning, promises to reconcile the uncertainty about the ontological status of embryos with the certainty about normative obligations.

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis and rational choice under risk or uncertainty.

In this paper I present an argument in favour of a parental duty to use preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). I argue that if embryos created in vitro were able to decide for themselves in a rational manner, they would sometimes choose PGD as a method of selection. Couples, therefore, should respect their hypothetical choices on a principle similar to that of patient autonomy.