Roger Brownsword

Human dignity in bioethics and biolaw.

1. Human Dignity and Human Rights: Human Dignity as Empowerment 2. Human Dignity and the New Bioethics: Human Dignity as Constraint 3. Dignity, Human Dignity, and Dignified Conduct 4. The Principle of Generic Consistency and Its Justification 5. Kant and Gewirth 6. Dignity, Rights, and Virtue under the Principle of Generic Consistency 7. Being Born with Dignity: Selecting the Genetic Characteristics of Offspring 8. Living with Dignity I: Ownership and Commodification of the Human Body and Its Parts 9. Living wih Dignity II: Patents and Contracts 10. Living with Dignity III: Prolonging Life, Denying Death, and Cosmetic Augmentation 11. Dying with Dignity Bibliography

The Cambridge handbook of human dignity: Interdisciplinary perspectives

This introduction to human dignity explores the history of the notion from antiquity to the nineteenth century, and the way in which dignity is conceptualised in non-Western contexts. Building on this, it addresses a range of systematic conceptualisations, considers the theoretical and legal conditions for human dignity as a useful notion and analyses a number of philosophical and conceptual approaches to dignity. Finally, the book introduces current debates, paying particular attention to the legal implementation, human rights, justice and conflicts, medicine and bioethics, and provides an explicit systematic framework for discussing human dignity. Adopting a wide range of perspectives and taking into account numerous cultures and contexts, this handbook is a valuable resource for students, scholars and professionals working in philosophy, law, history and theology.

Human dignity: a guide to policy making in the biotechnology era?

This article explores the ways in which human dignity is used in debates about controversial biotechnologies, including biobanks, human gene patents, stem cell research and human cloning. Increasingly, human dignity is used as a form of general condemnation and as blanket justification for regulatory restraint. However, this use of human dignity marks a significant departure from the traditional, human-rights informed view of human dignity that has dominated bioethics debates for decades. In addition, on its own, it stands as dubious justification for policies that are aimed at constraining controversial biotechnologies.

Research led by participants: a new social contract for a new kind of research

In recent years, there have been prominent calls for a new social contract that accords a more central role to citizens in health research. Typically, this has been understood as citizens and patients having a greater voice and role within the standard research enterprise. Beyond this, however, it is important that the renegotiated contract specifically addresses the oversight of a new, path-breaking approach to health research: participant-led research. In light of the momentum behind participant-led research and its potential to advance health knowledge by challenging and complementing traditional research, it is vital for all stakeholders to work together in securing the conditions that will enable it to flourish.

Law, Innovation and Technology: Before We Fast Forward - A Forum For Debate

It has been claimed that improvements to the human condition tend to be the result of technological innovation rather than legislative or regulatory intervention.1 If there is some truth in this view, it implies a rather sad commentary on the law. For, it implies either that law is not the progressive and civilising social institution that we—or, at any rate, some lawyers—take it to be, that the function and contribution of law is rather modest, or that law is an institution that is under-performing. With the launch of this journal, Law, Innovation and Technology, we intend to offer a forum that will afford the opportunity not merely to correct this negative perception but far more importantly to rectify whatever shortcomings there are in the actualities of legal and regulatory performance. In particular, we wish to offer the floor to those who have ideas about how law might engage more productively with technological innovation, whether by more imaginative application of legal and regulatory resources, or by developing synergies between legal and technological instruments of regulation, or by improving institutional arrangements that shape the regulatory environment. In recent decades, there seems to have been a striking acceleration in technological innovation, one development building on another in the way that compound interest accumulates. Famously, Pierre Baldi2 has claimed that:

The Cult of Consent: Fixation and Fallacy

IN A culture that has shaken off paternalistic and status-based thinking, autonomous individuals expect to be given the opportunity to consent or to refuse; those who perceive themselves to be stakeholders or interested parties are outraged when actions are taken without consultation and without their consent; and concerns about the legitimacy of proposed actions are assuaged by the assurance that nothing will be done without the prior consent of the parties affected. Consent is watermarked into the justificatory currency of such a community. Much of the modern law in England reflects this commitment to consent. For example, the landmark decisions in Gillick1 and R v R 2 are, each in their own way, indicative of the sense that those who are capable of making their own decisions (of consenting or refusing) should be given the opportunity to do so; and, although the doctrine of informed consent in medical law has not taken root in English law in quite the way that it has been accepted elsewhere,3 it is axiomatic that consent is a key that opens the door to legitimate treatment.4 In fact, the more that one looks, the more that one sees a pervasive concern with consent, in both private law and public

My Body, My Body Parts, My Property?

This paper challenges the view, commonly held inbiolaw and bioethics, that there can be no proprietaryrights in our own bodies or body parts. Whether thestarting point is the post-intervention informedconsent regime of Article 22 of the Convention ofHuman Rights and Biomedicine or the traditional(exclusionary) understanding of private property it isargued that property in our own bodies or body partsis presupposed. Although these arguments do notdemonstrate that there is property of this kind (forthat, a full-scale justification of the institution ofprivate property would be required), they suggestnevertheless that the commonly held view has animmanent property logic that has not yet been drawnout or appreciated.

The ancillary-care responsibilities of researchers: reasonable but not great expectations.

This paper argues that, in a community of rights, the prima facie responsibilities of researchers to attend to the ancillary-care needs of their participants would be determined by a four-stage test (relating to placement, capacity, reasonable imposition, and fair demand). This test, it is suggested, sets a standard (and an example) for common law courts that are invited to recognize the ancillary-care responsibilities of researchers, whether as a matter of contract or tort law.

Regulating Human Enhancement: Things Can Only Get Better?

Is there any reason to object on moral grounds to technologies of human enhancement— for example, to enhanced intelligence, enhanced strength, enhanced height or sight, and the like? Famously, John Harris has argued that ‘not only are [such] enhancements permissible but ... in some cases there is a positive moral duty to enhance’.1 In a memorable passage, Harris relies on one of his favourite persuasive examples. Having observed that those readers who use spectacles are relying on an enhancement technology (albeit one that is restorative or corrective), Harris continues:

The ethics of screening for abdominal aortic aneurysm in men

Approximately 6000 men die every year from ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm in England and Wales. Randomised clinical trials and a large pilot study have shown that ultrasound screening of men aged 65 years can prevent about half of these deaths. However, there is a significant perioperative morbidity and mortality from interventions to repair the detected aneurysm. This paper explores the ethical issues of screening men for abdominal aortic aneurysm. It is concluded that a population screening programme for abdominal aortic aneurysm offers a clear balance of good over harm. It is therefore ethically justified, as long as men are given adequate information at every stage of the process. Each man has the right to be properly informed, regardless of whether he accepts the invitation to be screened and, if an aneurysm is detected, whether or not he accepts treatment.