Nothing as It Seems

An version of this article was printed in  Humanism Ireland , March-April, Vol. 151 (2015)   Incest is something most people find morally objectionable and it's one of the most common of all cultural taboos. The British Medical Association’s Complete Family Health Encyclopaedia (1990) defines incest as “ intercourse between close relatives,” that usually includes “intercourse with a parent, a son or daughter, a brother or sister, an uncle or aunt, a nephew or niece, a grandparent or grandchild.” The Oxford English Dictionary ’s definition is a little broader: it doesn’t confine incest to just intercourse, but to “sexual relations between people classified as being too closely related to marry each other.”    Most countries have some kind of law against incest—though consensual adult incest is not a crime in France, Spain, Russia the Netherlands, and a host of countries in South America. In England and Wales, however, t he Sexual Offences Act 2003 makes it an of

My forthcoming peer commentary in the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics : “ Two Concerns About The Medicalization of Love ” The commentary considers two points relating to the ethical and social implications about the medicalization of love. The first is one that Earp et al broached in their paper, where I examine further the role and influence of pharmaceuticals in society. The other is one they don’t consider – that is, the effects neurotechnologies could have on some non-Western cultures. In the end, I claim that in spite of these concerns, it does not mean we should abandon neurotechnological interventions or a medicalized point of view; yet a more detailed understanding of how potential forms of misuse could emerge needs further examination. To read the article, click HERE