Time to talk about ethics!
The Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics (CRB) is starting an ethics blog! In the blog, researchers from CRB discuss their own research and comment on debates.
Pär Segerdahl is the editor of the Ethics Blog and writes both about his own and other’s research.
- We need to discuss the ethical questions that arise when we conduct research and provide health care. We also need to reflect on how we talk about these questions. Society is changing and we need to stop talking about ethics in old terms, says Pär Segerdahl.
Pär Segerdahl is a philosopher and his research in the last few years has dealt with the language of apes, animal welfare and gender. But his perspective is not the only one. The content of the blog draws from the whole group of researchers at CRB, coming from different disciplines and perspectives.
- We have ethicists, philosophers and lawyers, but also doctors, nurses, a pharmacist and a psychologist. Some of them will appear as writers in the blog and all of us contribute to the discussion, says Pär Segerdahl.
The initiative came from Mats G. Hansson, director of CRB.
- Many of our research questions actually arise in dialogue with researchers and hospital staff. We have thought about more ways to share results and discuss them with the people who give us the input. The blog will be a complement to publications, website and conferences. I see it as a way to share knowledge not only knowledge, but
the debates and discussions we have within the group and with other researchers, Mats G. Hansson says.
The bulk of the blog content deals with the research that is conducted at CRB. Just starting, the focus lies on biobanks and health care. But, Pär Segerdahl and Mats G. Hansson promise more will come. If you are interested in ape language, neurophilosophy, doping and how we should handle human remains, you will not be disappointed!
CRB has decided to do two separate blogs: one in Swedish dealing with the Swedish debate and one in English. According to Mats G. Hansson, this is because the audiences differ slightly. The English version is more geared towards the scientific community.
- We need an English language blog to discuss bioethics research with bioethicists and the doctors, nurses and scientists dealing with the issues at hand. We need to discuss research ethics with the researchers that face the problem and this is not a national problem that can be discussed in Swedish only, Mats G. Hansson says.
Visit the Ethics Blog at
www.ethicsblog.crb.uu.se
And, if you speak Swedish, have a look at etikbloggen too:
www.etikbloggen.crb.uu.se