Bio(un)ethical

In this episode, we speak with two leading bioethics scholars about the state of bioethics today. Dr. Emily Largent is the Emanuel and Robert Hart Associate Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy and the Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Govind Persad is an Associate Professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and our first returning gues...

In this episode, we speak with Dr. David Thorstad: Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, Senior Research Affiliate at the Global Priorities Institute, and author of the blog, Reflective Altruism. We discuss existential risks–threats that could permanently destroy or drastically curtail humanity’s future–and how we should reason about these risks under significant uncertainty.

(00:00) Our introduction

(09:32) Int...

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Rochelle Walensky, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). We discuss the state of American public health infrastructure, the challenges it faces, and what we can do to improve it.

(00:00) Our introduction
(03:45) Interview begins
(09:32) Core challenges: Maintaining and growing the workforce
(18:41) Core challenges: Standardizing and modernizing data sy...

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Quayshawn Spencer, Robert S. Blank Presidential Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, about what race is, why he’s a radical racial pluralist, and what this could imply in science and medicine.

(00:00) Our introduction
(11:23) Interview begins
(20:21) Methodology: What are philosophers of race trying to do?
(32:05) From aspiring physician-scientist to phil...

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Jeff McMahan, Emeritus Sekyra and White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford University, about whether germline gene editing is ever morally preferable to embryo selection and whether and when we should control the genetic outcomes of our children.

(00:00) Our introduction
(06:48) Interview begins
(10:06) Same-child choices and different-child choices
(27:24) Against the comparativ...

In this episode, we speak with researcher and physician Dr. James Diao about when and why race should be included or excluded from clinical algorithms. We focus on his work evaluating the implications of including race as a variable in two clinical algorithms: one used to assess lung function, and another used to assess cardiovascular disease risk.

(00:00) Our introduction
(05:10) Interview begins
(09:47) Criteria for the in...

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Sarah McGrath, professor of philosophy at Princeton University. We discuss whether and when it makes sense to defer to others about the answers to moral questions, whether moral deference is any less appropriate than deference in other domains, like math or science, and whether we have reason to think bioethicists are moral experts.

(00:00) Our introduction
(04:28) Interview begins
(08:02) ...

In this episode, we speak with Dr. David Wendler, Head of the Section on Research Ethics in the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center and philosopher by training. We discuss the ethics of pediatric research: how much risk we should expose kids to in research; what we should do when the federal research regulations don’t make sense; and what was and wasn’t wrong with the Kennedy Krieger Lead Ab...

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Richard Leiter, senior palliative care physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. We discuss the state of end-of-life care in the US today, why patients often receive care that doesn’t align with their values, whether some of the care that doesn’t seem to promote the things patients’ care about actually ...

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Danielle Allen, professor of political philosophy, ethics, and public policy at Harvard and Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, about the extent to which we should involve laypeople in decisions about health and science policy through democratic, participatory processes.

(00:00) Our introduction
(08:47) Interview begins
(12:23) Power-sharing in the domains of health and scie...

In this episode, we speak with Marc Lipsitch, epidemiologist and professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, about what lessons we should take from the COVID-19 pandemic, what role research should play in mitigating and preventing future pandemics, and how we should regulate research on potential pandemic pathogens.

(00:00) Our introduction
(11:26) Inte...

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Sally Haslanger, Ford Professor of Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies at MIT, about what norms are, how we can know when they need to be changed, and how we should change them.

(00:00) Our introduction
(5:12) Interview begins
(16:07) What grounds social norms
(18:56) How we can know a moral norm is problematic
(23:11) How social and moral norms relate
(29:49) What is soci...

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby, a philosopher and bioethicist at Baylor College of Medicine, about why she thinks clinicians are often permitted, and even required, to use insights from behavioral economics and decision psychology to shape patients’ medical decisions.

(00:00) Our introduction
(05:50) Interview begins
(07:57) What is a nudge?
(15:15) Is there any such thing as pure rational p...

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Jeff Sebo, a philosopher and bioethicist at New York University, about what it would mean to take seriously the possibility that non-human animals (including insects) and future AI systems might matter morally.

(00:00) Our introduction
(05:56) Interview begins
(07:21) The moral circle vs. the legal and political circles
(13:18) Why has the moral circle expanded over time?
(20:53) Ho...

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Christopher Robichaud, Director of Pedagogical Innovation at Harvard’s Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics, about whether and how we can teach scientists, doctors, and other professionals to be more ethical, what the goals of ethics education ought to be, and how we can know we’re achieving them.

(00:00) Our introduction
(13:18) Interview begins
(17:39) Does ethics education miss the po...

In this episode, we speak with Professor Holly Fernandez Lynch, a lawyer and bioethicist in the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania and founder and co-chair of AEREO, an organization that aims to understand and measure the benefits and drawbacks of the IRB system. With Holly, we discuss what we currently know about the benefits and costs of IRBs, why it’s so hard to measure them, and whe...

Content warning: This episode contains discussions of suicide, suicidal ideation, and symptoms of mental illness. If you or someone you know or love is struggling, please seek help. You can call or text 988 to reach the suicide and crisis lifeline.

In this episode, we interview Dr. Marie Nicolini, a psychiatrist and bioethicist who testified to the Canadian Parliament as an expert witness on the issue of medical aid in dying (MAID) ...

In this episode, we interview Dr. Govind Persad, an expert on resource allocation whose work influenced COVID-19 allocation policies, about how we should allocate scarce medical resources, what stood in the way of optimal allocation during the covid pandemic, and how we can improve resource allocation within the US healthcare system. 

(00:00) Our Introduction
(04:05) Interview begins
(12:06) What is a “framework” for allocat...

In this episode, we interview Dr. Robert Steel about how we should assess the risks and benefits of research, what justifies research oversight, and whether there should be upper limits on the amount of risk research participants are exposed to.

(00:00) Our introduction
(05:06) Start of interview; IRB background
(13:34) The notion of minimal risk
(24:49) Justifying IRB risk evaluation: Initial discussion
(3...