Experimental Philosophical Bioethics (BioXPhi)

What is experimental philosophical bioethics (bioXphi)? Learn here at The New Experimental Philosophy Blog: xphiblog.com/introducing-bi…

New paper alert, "Setting, context and the regulatory atmospheres of psychedelic medicine" in International Journal of Drug Policy @ijdrugpolicy -- a collaboration between Alex Gearin @alex_gearin (HKU Medicine), I. Glenn Cohen @CohenProf (Harvard Law) and Albert Garcia-Romeu (Hopkins Medicine). View open access: doi.org/10.1016/j.drug… Psychedelic medicines are sensitive to context and setting due to their special impacts on perception and cognition. In this interdisciplinary paper, the authors examine settings and contexts of psychedelic medicine use as the "building blocks of felt atmospheres" to examine how new policy experiments in the United States and Australia are regulating new legal pathways. Regulatory atmospheres, as the authors call them, refer to how policy shapes interpersonal, sensory, and affective conditions of psychedelic use -- including by defining the who, what, and where of legal pathways -- but also how law and prohibition continue to impact underground and traditional atmospheres of psychedelic use in diffuse and uneven ways. From the paper's introduction: "To trace divergent possibilities for psychedelic medicine, this paper proceeds in several steps. First, it outlines how scientific experiments in setting and context stage different psychedelic atmospheres as they aim to better understand risk and efficacy. Second, it explores how this has come up against a biopolitics of medical regulation that seeks to minimize psychotherapy in favor of pharmacotherapy model. Third, it analyzes differences in setting and context codified by policy experiments in Colorado and Oregon in the United States and the Authorized Prescriber scheme in Australia. Then, it shows how law continues to cast a shadow across a wider ecology of use, where many settings are affected by prohibition in underground and traditional contexts, revealing a haunting effect of regulatory atmospheres. By paying attention to psychedelic settings, the article shows how ideas about what counts as risk and about what counts as healing—chemical, psychotherapeutic alliance, environment, culture or more—can reflect the ontological and regulatory conditions that bring them into being. @hku_mehu @HKUCMEL @hkumed @Harvard_Law @PetrieFlom @JHPsychedelics @HopkinsMedicine #PsychedelicMedicine #PsychedelicScience #PsychedelicTherapy #PsychedelicAssistedTherapy #DrugPolicy #PsychedelicPolicy #DrugLaw #HealthPolicy #Prohibition #SetAndSetting #TherapeuticContext #PlantMedicine #HealingEnvironment #MedicalAnthropology #MedicalHumanities #Bioethics #HealthLaw

Academic journals when you've sent them an article for review: sorry one of the reviewers dropped out. It's going to take us another two years just to email a replacement. Academic journals when they've accepted your article: Here are the proofs we need them back in two hours.

🚨 New paper - we reply comprehensively to our critics: "The Enduring Promise of Personalising Patient Preference Prediction"- Neuroethics - OPEN ACCESS link.springer.com/article/10.100…

Out now: I am thrilled that my new book - *The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence: A Philosophical Introduction* - has just been published by Hackett. Available from all major book sellers. #aiethics #philosophy #ethicsofai

Link here: jmepb.bmj.com/pages/perspect…

Call for submissions 📢 JME Practical Bioethics is calling for papers on: Global bioethics perspectives on ectogestation. Submissions are open until 24th May 2026. Link to the Call for Papers below.

Link here: jmepb.bmj.com/pages/doing-et…

Call for submissions 📢 JME Practical Bioethics is calling for papers on: Doing ethics with AI. Submissions are open until 24th May 2026. Link to the Call for Papers below.

New video 🚨 A notebook explainer for "Beyond Deepfakes: 'Digital Duplicates' or AI Simulations of Real People - An International Ethical Consensus" led by Clint Hurshman and Cristina Voinea for our Singapore workshop youtu.be/b1la6uNsc7s

Link here: buff.ly/aIDcD76.

New publication 🚨 "Ethics and Regulation of Human Brain Organoid Research: Recommendations from The Asia Pacific Neuroethics Working Group" - in press with Asian Bioethics Review (link below).

The Case for Pluralism in Death Determination: From Empirical Data to a Policy Proposal researchgate.net/publication/39…

@ethicsinthenews Link here: buff.ly/b91XR9m

New publication 🚨 "Even with Diet and Exercise, Ozempic Use Reduces Perceived Effort and Praiseworthiness of Resulting Weight Loss" - led by @ethicsinthenews Maria Bachmakova and published in Social Science & Medicine (link below).

🌍 We’re still inviting collaborators—especially from underrepresented regions—to join our cross-cultural replication project. @briandavidearp @bioxphi

Will Human-Animal Chimeras Cause Moral Confusion? Exploring Public Attitudes researchgate.net/publication/39…

Psychologists have posited hundreds of cognitive biases over the years. A fascinating paper argues that they all boil down to one of a handful of fundamental beliefs coupled with confirmation bias. [Link below.]

A qualitative study of true self judgments, epistemic access, and medical decision-making | Journal of Medical Ethics jme.bmj.com/content/early/…

🚨 Global BioXPhi Research Initiative 🚨 Assessing Replicability and Cross-Cultural Generalisability of Experimental Philosophical Bioethics (@bioxphi) studies! Exciting initiative led by Ivar Hannikainen (@moralsciencelab) and @briandavidearp (@NUS_CBmE) mscilab.com/globalbioxphi/

Throwback to the first ⁦@bioxphi⁩ workshop in 2019 in New Haven ☺️ with Vilius and Ivar