S. Matthew Liao, Director of NYU’s Center for Bioethics, has developed a human rights-based approach to assess the ethics of genetic engineering. Read the article here.
Congratulations to Center Director Matthew Liao on being named a Hastings Center Fellow!
The NYU Center for Bioethics is thrilled to announce that our Director and Chair, Professor S. Matthew Liao, has been named a Hastings Center Fellow! Read more about this honor below:
Book Launch: Dying of Whiteness
The NYU Center for Bioethics invites you to join NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge for the launch of Jonathan Metzl’s new book Dying of Whiteness, forthcoming from Basic Books, featuring the author in conversation with Alondra Nelson.
With the rise of the Tea Party and the election of Donald Trump, many middle- and lower-income white Americans threw their support behind conservative politicians who pledged to make life great again for people like them. But as Dying of Whiteness shows, the right-wing policies that resulted from this white backlash put these voters’ very health at risk—and in the end, threaten everyone’s well-being.
Physician and sociologist Jonathan M. Metzl travels across America’s heartland seeking to better understand the politics of racial resentment and its impact on public health. Interviewing a range of Americans, he uncovers how racial anxieties led to the repeal of gun control laws in Missouri, stymied the Affordable Care Act in Tennessee, and fueled massive cuts to schools and social services in Kansas. Although such measures promised to restore greatness to white America, Metzl’s systematic analysis of health data dramatically reveals they did just the opposite: these policies made life sicker, harder, and shorter in the very populations they purported to aid. Thus, white gun suicides soared, life expectancies fell, and school dropout rates rose.
Powerful, searing, and sobering, Dying of Whiteness ultimately demonstrates just how much white America would benefit by emphasizing cooperation, rather than by chasing false promises of supremacy.
For more information, and to RSVP, follow the link below:
NYU Center for Bioethics Undergraduate Essay Contest: Deadline March 1
The Center for Bioethics at NYU is pleased to announce its inaugural undergraduate essay contest! Undergraduates from across the country are invited to submit a 2,000-2,500 word essay addressing a contemporary issue in bioethics. The winning essay(s) will be eligible for publication in the Medical Dialogue Review and win a cash prize! The essays will be judged by the faculty of the Center for Bioethics at NYU. Submissions should be sent to bioethics@nyu.edu by March 1st, 2019. For details, see the flier below:
2/8 Bioethics Colloquium: Hanna Pickard on The Puzzle of Addiction
Join us Friday, February 8th, 2019, for a special lecture with Hanna Pickard entitled “The Puzzle of Addiction”.
The Puzzle of Addiction
The orthodox conception of drug addiction is a neurobiological disease characterised by compulsive drug use despite negative consequences. But this conception depends on three core ideas that are rarely clarified: disease, compulsion, and negative consequences. Pickard argues that it is only when the significance of negative consequences is appreciated that the puzzle of addiction comes clearly into view; and she discusses some conceptual and empirical grounds supporting scepticism about the claim that addiction can be accurately characterised as a form of compulsion, and agnosticism about the claim that addiction is a neurobiological disease. Addiction is better characterized as involving drug choices that, while on the surface puzzling, can be explained by recognizing the multiple functions that drugs serve, and by contextualizing drug choices in relation to a host of interacting and individualized factors. Alongside craving or strength of motivation to use, these factors include (1) psychiatric co-morbidity, (2) limited socio-economic opportunities, (3) temporally myopic decision-making, (4) denial and motivated irrationality, and, lastly, (5) a sense of self and social identity. She shall briefly explain the relevance of all five factors, but conclude by focussing on (5) in more detail, exploring the distinctive way that the human drive not only for social reward and belonging but also to know who one is can serve to cement addiction and impede recovery.
Hanna Pickard is Professor in Philosophy of Psychology at the University of Birmingham, UK, and a 3-year Visiting Research Scholar in the Program of Cognitive Science at Princeton University. In addition to her academic work, from 2007-17 she worked in a NHS specialist service for people with personality disorders and complex needs. Website: www.hannapickard.com.
Friday, February 8th, 2019
4:00 – 6:00 PM
Pless Lounge, 1st Floor
82 Washington Square E, New York, NY 10003
Reception to follow
