Publication: A Sufficiency Threshold is Not a Harm Principle (Bioethics)

 My latest publication has just been assigned to the January 2021 issue of Bioethics. My paper is open access, so available to everyone.

Here's a word cloud summary:

(Generated by https://www.wordclouds.com/).

And here's the more traditional abstract:

Douglas Diekema influentially argues that interference with parental decisions is not in fact guided by the child’s best interests, but rather by a more permissive standard, which he calls the harm principle. This article first seeks to clarify this alternative position and defend it against certain existing criticisms, before offering a new criticism and alternative. This ‘harm principle’ has been criticized for (i) lack of adequate moral grounding, and (ii) being as indeterminate as the best interest standard that it seeks to replace. I argue that these are not serious problems. I take Diekema’s negative point to be right—our actual standard for intervention is not literally the best interests of the child—but I disagree with his proposed replacement. First, Diekema’s proposed harm threshold should be more carefully distinguished from Mill’s harm principle. Second, there is no reason to assume that the standard for permissible intervention coincides with the threshold for harm (or serious harm). Thus, I propose that the best alternative to the best interests standard is not a harm principle, but rather a sufficiency threshold between adequate (or ‘good enough’) and inadequate (or ‘substandard’) parenting.

A Slight Change of Emphasis...

 This blog has evolved a lot since I started it way back in 2005. I posted a lot more in those early years, from about 2005-2008 and much more sporadically since 2012 (in 2016, I only managed 11 posts all year, which is less than one a month). It's picked up a bit this year, probably due to being on lockdown.

 

I had considered giving the blog up entirely, but I find this a useful repository for things like news stories that I may want to come back to later, so my present thought is that it's still worth keeping, even if I'm mostly just talking to myself. However, to keep regular content, I need things to post.

 

With that in mind, I've decided to diversify my posts and (as of last month) start including a couple of things that have been part of my life for a while, but that I've hitherto kept off this blog:

1. Photography. I'm not a great photographer by any stretch of the imagination. (Nor do I have a great camera, though I'm not blaming that entirely.) Nonetheless, we've been getting into local walks since lockdown began in March and I've been documenting these with photos.

 

I'm not going to go back in time and post many from earlier in the year, but expect to see periodic photography posts in future. Some of these I may even use for teaching. (Regarding tags, I already had one for 'pictures' which were not necessarily my own. I think for now all photography will also have the 'pictures' tag, but also a new 'photos' tag, though I may re-think this in future.)

2. Gaming. (Note: this refers to board or table-top wargames; not computer/video games.) I've generally kept my wargaming hobby off the blog, because I also use the blog for professional purposes. However, I've decided that there's no need to separate the personal and professional, given that I've already used the blog for all kinds of other personal interests, such as football and music. So, expect to see the occasional post either about building/painting miniatures, collecting, or gaming with them, such as this Frostgrave battle report from last month.

I don't expect either of these to amount to more than a post or two per month, and I'm not going to stop posting the other things that I have been posting, but (given that my recent record is normally only a post or two a month anyway) this may amount to a bit of a change in focus.

 

As ever, I don't expect anyone who stumbles across this blog to share all of my interests. So, if anyone else is actually reading this, feel free to pick out the bits that interest you. Perhaps these new additions will actually find me some new readers, who may want to ignore all that academic philosophy and political comment...

Organ Donation Change

I haven't caught a bus now in over eight months, due to the ongoing pandemic, but the other day I saw one of these posters at a bus stop and wanted a picture for my lecture on organ donation (as part of my ethics of public policy).

 

This isn't actually the one I saw originally. I didn't have my camera on me then, so I went out specially to get a photo today and it had gone. Thankfully, I decided to walk along to the next stop on the route and found what I was looking for there.

I previously blogged quite a bit about organ donation here, as part of a project that I was running in Stirling. I don't know whether my work had any impact on the recent changes - probably not demonstrable impact anyway - but I'm glad to see this change at last.

Boris Johnson on lockdown and freedom

An interesting section of Hansard (22nd September 2020 - vol. 680, column 814) that was brought to my attention today:

Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)

I thank the Prime Minister for his statement. He is right to say that it is the co-operation and good sense of the British public that has seen the spread of this difficult outbreak curtailed. My constituents will continue to do exactly what is required of them, but the truth is that Cornwall has a very low rate of covid-19, and that has been the case throughout. What message of hope can the Prime Minister give to teenagers going to schools and colleges who are being asked to wear face masks when not in class, to churchgoers who have been blocked from freedom of worship, and to businesses that have yet to open and are continually frustrated from doing so?

The Prime Minister

Churchgoers will continue to have freedom of worship under the proposals. We want life, as far as we possibly we can, to keep going as normally as possible. We want the economy to keep moving. The best hope I can offer my hon. Friend’s constituents, for whom he fights so valiantly, is that we get this virus back under control, take the country forward and keep the economy moving. That is the best prospect for our country.

Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)

Does the Prime Minister think that the reason Germany and Italy have far lower covid rates than us, with life continuing more or less normally, might be that they have locally and publicly run test and trace services that actually work?

The Prime Minister

No, I don’t, and I think the continual attacks on local test and trace and what NHS Test and Trace has done are undermining and unnecessary. Actually, there is an important difference between our country and many other countries around the world: our country is a freedom-loving country. If we look at the history of this country over the past 300 years, virtually every advance, from free speech to democracy, has come from this country. It is very difficult to ask the British population uniformly to obey guidelines in the way that is necessary. What we are saying today is that collectively—I am answering the right hon. Gentleman’s ​question directly—the way to do that is for us all to follow the guidelines, which we will strictly enforce, and get the R down. That is the way forward.

This semester, I've been teaching freedom (as part of our introduction to political theory module) and will be teaching about pandemic responses (as part of my ethics of public policy module). This exchange is relevant to both.

Winter is Coming...

 I wouldn't say I'm a big fan of autumn in general, but the colourful trees do look nice.

The woods are getting pretty muddy now though, so - along with the shorter days - I guess we won't get as many of these walks in as we have been over the summer.

 

Did she die in vain?

 Via a friend in Nottingham, I see this story of a bookshop that's resisting the lockdown, citing Article 61 of the Magna Carta.

For the record, it seems this doesn't justify a general right to dissent - certainly not for everyone and not one that's still in force today either.

Still, I've been discussing lockdown protests with some of my students, so this is another nice example for the file.

Frostgrave: Alchemical Monstrosity (solo play)

A quick write-up/report of my first attempt at solo-play Frostgrave.

Warband: wizard (unaligned), treasure hunter, crossbowwoman, archer.

 

Table set up:

 

Deployment:

 

As the dust settles, the members of my warband can see two doorways in the distance, one of which they hope will lead to an exit. No sign of danger but, unbeknownst to them, something is lurking behind the large pile of fallen masonry directly in front of them. A vicious goose (alchemical monstrosity):

 

Turn 1. The crossbowwoman advances to the left and shoots at the goose, while the archer goes to the right and also shoots at the goose. Neither shot achieves anything. The wizard heads off to the left, towards one of the treasure tokens, while the treasure hunter moves right, taking up a position in front of the archer, trying to lure the goose towards him. This brave – or foolish – ploy works, as the goose charges towards him but, having to traverse some rubble, falls just short of reaching him.

 

Turn 2. The wizard advances down the left flank and picks up the treasure token in front of him. The crossbowwoman reloads and advances forwards, to where she had a potential shot at the goose (but no more activations this turn).

The treasure hunter decides that the goose is too close for comfort and discretion is the better part of valour, so he backs away – looking to move round a large ruined wall and towards another treasure – but not without taking damage from the goose’s tentacle attack. This leaves the archer exposed, so he retreats back towards the board edge and shoots at the goose with no effect.

The goose doesn’t pursue him, because it can now see the crossbowwoman and charges her instead.

Turn 3. While the goose attacks the crossbowwoman, the wizard advances down the left, in possession of one treasure and closing in on a second, and the treasure hunter moves forward down the right, picking up another treasure. Unfortunately, this also places him with range of a newly-spawned rat, which finishes the already-wounded treasure hunter off with a single bite.

The archer moves forward, into a position where he could shoot the goose, which is currently still locked in combat with the crossbowwoman (who is bravely focusing on keeping it tied up in combat for as long as possible).

 

 

Turn 4. The wizard, now in possession of two treasures, is able to reach the left-hand door (but not in time to try it this turn). While the crossbowwoman is still tying up the goose, the archer moves forward and shoots the rat, killing it.

Turn 5. The wizard tries the door, but it’s the wrong one. He moves across towards the other one, bringing him closer to the rat-hole. The archer moves forward, picking up a treasure token. The goose finally finishes off the crossbowwoman and then turns (after the below picture) to pursue the archer.

 

Turn 6. The goose charges the archer, but loses combat, so the archer pushes it back and retreats towards the right (and the remaining treasure token, that was dropped by the treasure hunter), taking a shot as he does so, but without effect.

Turn 7. The goose charges the archer again, but this time the archer rolls a natural 20 and finishes it off.

At the same time, the wizard – who is now stood next to the rat hole – is stuck fighting a series of rats, with a new one appearing every time he dispatches one.

Turns 8+. The archer, now in possession of two treasures, is able to reach and open the right-hand door while a break in the flow of rats allows the wizard also to head that way. One last rats appears, but only in time to see the wizard and archer disappearing through the doorway.

 

Aftermath:

The treasure hunter made a full recovery from his rat bite, but the crossbowwoman suffered fatal injuries after heroically keeping the goose in combat for several turns.

The four treasures recovered yielded 30 gold coins, a magic hand weapon (+1 Fight), two potions (Preservation and an Exploding Cocktails), and two scrolls (Glow and Construct Oil).

There wasn’t much experience. I hadn’t really chosen spells, so didn’t cast any! A total of 80, for getting out the door and for killing monsters (four rats, I think).