In this paper, I reframe the long-standing controversy between ‘psychological egoism’, which argues that human beings never perform altruistic actions, and the opposing thesis of ‘psychological altruism’, which claims that human beings are, at least sometimes, capable of acting in an altruistic fashion. After a brief sketch of the controversy, I begin by presenting some representative arguments...

The ethical review of research on human beings, and indeed the ethical review of broader ranges of human activity, is a growth industry. I want to look here at the ethical review of research on humans and raise some questions about the direction it is taking. I am pessimistic about where the institutions that we have set up are leading us and I want to sound a warning note and suggest some chan...

Health research initiatives worldwide are growing in scope and complexity, particularly as they move into the developing world. Expanding health research activity in low- and middle-income countries has resulted in a commensurate rise in the need for sound ethical review structures and functions in the form of Research Ethics Committees (RECs). The urgent need for continued capacity development...

Some of the most important issues in society today affect more than one generation of people. In this article, the authors offer a conceptual overview and integration of the research on intergenerational dilemmas-decisions that entail a tradeoff between one's own self-interest in the present and the interests of other people in the future. Intergenerational decisions are characterized by a comb...

In Simonsohn (2011) I report the results from 14 studies that suggest all existing evidence of implicit egotism in marriage, job and location decisions is spurious. Lack of diligence by Pelham and colleagues explains in great part why the confounds behind their findings were not addressed in time. They almost never included controls, were dismissive of blatant alternative explanations, and on o...

The suicide rate in South Korea has been steadily increasing for the past twenty years and has become a major societal issue. Accordingly, the phenomenon has drawn the attention of researchers from many different perspectives that have looked to a variety of causes. Efforts to understand the trends from a sociological perspective, however, are scarce. One notable exception is Ben Park’s (2012) ...

Honesty in Islamic mystical ethics, at a superficial level, refers to the correspondence between speech, action, and intention and purpose. This application of honesty has been analyzed in depth in mystical ethics, and the analysis has resulted in honesty being considered as the foundation and basis of other virtues from five aspects, from which it can be understood that many of virtues are not...

Evaluating the practice of ethical review by Research Ethics Committees (REC) could help protect the interests of human participants and promote scientific progress. To facilitate such evaluations, we conducted an ethnographic study of how an REC reviews research proposals during its meetings. We observed 13 meetings of a Dutch REC and studied REC documents. We coded this material inductively a...

Ethics committees are the most important practical instrument of clinical ethics in Belgium and fulfil three tasks: the ethical review of experimental protocols, advising on the ethical aspects of healthcare practice, and ethics consultation. In this article the authors examine the current situation of ethics committees in Belgium from the perspective of clinical ethics. Firstly, the most impor...