Issue 21(4) – December 2024 Editorials Recent Developments Critical Perspectives Original Research Book Reviews
Editorials
JBI retrospective: Rethinking Autonomy in Dementia Care
By Sarah Ward, JBI Intern Despite ample literature, defining autonomy and applying it in healthcare contexts has been challenging (Slowther, 2007). Broadly described as the capacity to make informed and voluntary decisions, autonomy is complex in the context of dementia, particularly in advanced stages, where cognitive decline alters the decision-making capacities of individuals (Taylor, 2018). …
JBI retrospective: The Pervasive Reach of Inequality Across Bioethical Dilemmas
By Lachlan Dowling, JBI Intern Amidst an era of turbulent change wherein the commitment of our prized institutions to the common good is doubted, a poem by the late-Russian Yevgeny Yevtushenko is particularly poignant. Entitled ‘Half Measures’, Yevtushenko criticises Russia during its 1990s democratisation over poorly implemented reforms: “…[W]ith every half-effective half measure Half the…
JBI blog: The Use and Abuse of Perspective in (Ethical) Reflection on War
By Liam Kelly, JBI Intern As I write this, the film Warfare – co-directed by Civil War’s Alex Garland and Iraq War veteran Ray Mendoza – is wrapping up its theatrical run in Australian cinemas. Much of the popular and critical buzz surrounding Warfare concerns its deliberately-narrow scope and purpose: the film purports to represent…
Remembering Miles Little (28.12.33 – 30.9.23)
Ian Kerridge, Wendy Lipworth, Christopher F. C. Jordens & Paul A. Komesaroff Free Access Editorial. The Journal of Bioethical Inquiry was established in 2004 with the explicit aim of being more than “just a journal”—more than merely a place where scholars and practitioners could publish their research, critical reflections, and analyses of bioethical issues and practice. Rather,…
Ethics, Politics, and Minorities
Michael A. Ashby Free Access Editorial. The late Helen Bamber was a distinguished pioneer of torture, trauma survivor, and refugee welfare work in the United Kingdom. She paints a vivid picture of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945 as a young Jewish welfare worker. She describes what she calls the Saturday afternoon…
“The Danger of Words”: Language Games in Bioethics
Michael A. Ashby Editorial. Free Access. Published online: 19 April 2023. To most doctors and health workers who haven’t studied philosophy, the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein are hard to approach. Many of us outside the philosophical academy will tend to know more about him through the landmark biography by Ray Monk (1991): the irascible genius…
One Last Unexpected Lesson From the Life and Death of Queen Elizabeth II?
Michael A. Ashby Editorial. Free Access. Published online: 2 February 2023. The death of the British sovereign, the longest serving head of state in history as far as we know, commanded global media attention for many days, and paralysed the United Kingdom for at least a fortnight. Profound admiration was expressed for her unswerving commitment…
Nature of Suffering, Anarchy, Life and Liberty: Is the Cure Worse Than the Disease?
Michael A. Ashby Editorial. Free Access. Published online 21 June 2022. As previously argued in this column, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed and magnified all the old potholes, the existing inequalities, deficits, state failures, discrimination, and vulnerabilities, rather than, for the most part, creating new problems. It is true that all people across the world–including…
Liminality: The Not-So-New Normal?
Editorial. Free Access. Published online 6 April 2022. Michael A. Ashby This edition of the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry carries a symposium compiled in honour of the work of a distinguished pioneer of Australian bioethics: Miles Little. As the symposium shows, Little started to work on methods and subjects that seem obvious to us now (the patient…