Fred Gifford

Last updated

Fred Gifford (a.k.a.) Freddy Giff is a professor and the associate chair of the philosophy department at Michigan State University. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh in 1984 and currently teaches courses on philosophy of technology, ethics and development, ethics and healthcare, and biotechnology. [1]

Contents

Contributions to Philosophy

Gifford's work focuses on philosophy of science, philosophy of medicine, bioethics, healthcare ethics, and ethics and development. [2] He co-founded (with Stephen L. Esquith) the ethics and development graduate specialization at Michigan State University and he is particularly active within the current debate in development ethics.

Professional Publications

Gifford is the author of over thirty peer-reviewed publications including “Bioethics in Costa Rica: Origins and Challenges," [3] "Ethics of Research: Protection of Human Subjects," [4] and the book co-edited with Stephen L. Esquith entitled Capabilities, Power, and Institutions: Towards a More Critical Development Ethics. [5]

Selected works

Co-editor with Stephen L. Esquith of Capabilities, Power, and Institutions: Towards a More Critical Development Ethics The Pennsylvania State University Press, (2010)

Fred Gifford and Ana Rodriguez, “Bioethics in Costa Rica: Origins and Challenges”, in Catherine Myser, ed., The Social Functions of Bioethics Around the Globe, Oxford University Press, 2010.

“Ethical Issues in Enhancement Research”, in Journal of Evolution and Technology Volume 17, number 2, May 2008.

“Ethics of Research: Protection of Human Subjects”, in the Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, http://www.els.net Archived 2011-05-13 at the Wayback Machine , London: Nature Publishing Group, Macmillan Reference Limited. 2008. (This is a revision of my article first published in March, 2001.)

“Pulling the Plug on Clinical Equipoise: A Critique of Miller and Weijer”, Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, Sept. 2007.

“So-Called “Clinical Equipoise” and the Argument from Design”, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy v. 32, n. 2, 2007, pp. 135–150.

“Taking Equipoise Seriously: The Failure of Clinical or Community Equipoise to Resolve the Ethical Dilemmas in Randomized Clinical Trials”, in H. Kincaid & J. McKitrick (Eds.), Establishing Medical Reality: Essays in the Metaphysics and Epistemology of Biomedical Science. New York: Springer, 2007, pp. 135–150.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Casuistry</span> Reasoning by extrapolation

In ethics, casuistry is a process of reasoning that seeks to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending theoretical rules from a particular case, and reapplying those rules to new instances. This method occurs in applied ethics and jurisprudence. The term is also commonly used as a pejorative to criticize the use of clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to moral questions. It is the "[s]tudy of cases of conscience and a method of solving conflicts of obligations by applying general principles of ethics, religion, and moral theology to particular and concrete cases of human conduct. This frequently demands an extensive knowledge of natural law and equity, civil law, ecclesiastical precepts, and an exceptional skill in interpreting these various norms of conduct." It remains a common tool for applied ethics.

Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health, including those emerging from advances in biology, medicine, and technologies. It proposes the discussion about moral discernment in society and it is often related to medical policy and practice, but also to broader questions as environment, well-being and public health. Bioethics is concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, theology and philosophy. It includes the study of values relating to primary care, other branches of medicine, ethical education in science, animal, and environmental ethics, and public health.

Medical ethics is an applied branch of ethics which analyzes the practice of clinical medicine and related scientific research. Medical ethics is based on a set of values that professionals can refer to in the case of any confusion or conflict. These values include the respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. Such tenets may allow doctors, care providers, and families to create a treatment plan and work towards the same common goal. It is important to note that these four values are not ranked in order of importance or relevance and that they all encompass values pertaining to medical ethics. However, a conflict may arise leading to the need for hierarchy in an ethical system, such that some moral elements overrule others with the purpose of applying the best moral judgement to a difficult medical situation. Medical ethics is particularly relevant in decisions regarding involuntary treatment and involuntary commitment.

In philosophy and neuroscience, neuroethics is the study of both the ethics of neuroscience and the neuroscience of ethics. The ethics of neuroscience comprises the bulk of work in neuroethics. It concerns the ethical, legal and social impact of neuroscience, including the ways in which neurotechnology can be used to predict or alter human behavior and "the implications of our mechanistic understanding of brain function for society... integrating neuroscientific knowledge with ethical and social thought".

The Declaration of Helsinki is a set of ethical principles regarding human experimentation developed originally in 1964 for the medical community by the World Medical Association (WMA). It is widely regarded as the cornerstone document on human research ethics.

The Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an interdisciplinary center serving the entire Johns Hopkins University and Health System. It is dedicated to the study of complex moral and policy issues in biomedical science, health care, and health policy. Established in 1995, the Institute seeks answers to ethical questions by promoting research in bioethics and encouraging moral reflection among a broad range of scholars, professionals, students, and citizens. Contributing to its mission are four divisions of the University: the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing.

Clinical equipoise, also known as the principle of equipoise, provides the ethical basis for medical research that involves assigning patients to different treatment arms of a clinical trial. The term was first used by Benjamin Freedman in 1987, although references to its use go back to 1795 by Dr. Edward Jenner. In short, clinical equipoise means that there is genuine uncertainty in the expert medical community over whether a treatment will be beneficial. This applies also for off-label treatments performed before or during their required clinical trials.

Albert R. Jonsen was one of the founders of the field of Bioethics. He was Emeritus Professor of Ethics in Medicine at the University of Washington, School of Medicine, where he was Chairman of the Department of Medical History and Ethics from 1987-1999. After retiring from UW, he returned to San Francisco, where he co-founded the Program in Medicine and Human Values at Sutter Health's California Pacific Medical Center in 2003.

Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct. The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concern matters of value, and thus comprise the branch of philosophy called axiology.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics is a UK-based independent charitable body, which examines and reports on bioethical issues raised by new advances in biological and medical research. Established in 1991, the Council is funded by the Nuffield Foundation, the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust. The Council has been described by the media as a 'leading ethics watchdog', which 'never shrinks from the unthinkable'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Centre for Applied Ethics</span>

Centre for Applied Ethics (CAE) at Hong Kong Baptist University was founded in 1992. It is the first of its kind established in China and one of the earliest in Asia. The Centre strives to stimulate critical reasoning about fundamental ethical concerns in contemporary society, to raise awareness of moral values, and to further strengthen the University's commitment to research and whole person education. To accomplish its mission, the Centre has been active in organizing various academic activities, publishing research results in different fields of Applied Ethics and developing a co-operation network with other institutions.

The Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum is an educational institute of the Catholic Church in Rome.

Judith Andre is a philosophy professor (retired) and virtue theorist. She earned her Ph.D. at Michigan State University in 1979 and has taught courses on ethical issues in global public health, ethics and development, animal welfare, and virtue theory at Old Dominion University and Michigan State University before retiring.

Stephen L. Esquith is a philosophy professor and the Dean of the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University. He earned his Ph.D. in political philosophy at Princeton University in 1979 and has taught courses at Michigan State University since 1980. Much of his current work deals with ethical issues in development.

Leonard Michael Fleck is an American philosophy professor and medical ethicist. He earned his Ph.D. from St. Louis University in 1975 and taught courses at St. Mary's College (Indiana) before going on to teach and at Michigan State University where he currently holds a dual appointment with the philosophy department and the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences. Fleck was also a member of Hillary Clinton's Task Force on Health Reform in 1993 and the staff ethicist for the Michigan governor's task force on access to health care in 1989-1990.

Ann M. Mongoven is an American philosophy professor and medical ethicist. She earned her Ph.D. in religious studies/ethics from the University of Virginia in 1996 and a M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2006. Mongoven taught courses at Indiana University/Bloomington before going on to teach at Michigan State University where she currently holds a dual appointment with the philosophy department and the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences. Mongoven is also a Michigan State University Lilly Teaching Fellow and was an ethics consultant for the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

Jamie Lindemann Nelson is a philosophy professor and bioethicist currently teaching at Michigan State University. Nelson earned her doctorate in philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1980 and taught at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and St. John's University before moving to Michigan State University. In addition, Nelson was an Associate for Ethical Studies at The Hastings Center from 1990–95 and is both a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow and a Fellow of the Hastings Center. Nelson usually teaches courses on biomedical ethics, ethical theory, moral psychology, feminist theory, and philosophy of language.

The MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, founded in 1981, is a non-profit clinical medical ethics research institute based in the United States. Founded by its director, Mark Siegler, the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics aims to improve patient care and outcomes by promoting research in clinical medical ethics by educating physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals and by helping University of Chicago Medicine patients, families, and health care providers identify and resolve ethical dilemmas. The center has trained over 410 fellows, including many physicians, attorneys, PhDs and bioethicists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul B. Thompson (philosopher)</span> American philosopher

Paul B. Thompson is a philosopher currently teaching at Michigan State University, where he holds the W.K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural Food and Community Ethics. Thompson was born in 1951 in Springfield, Missouri. He earned his B.A. at Emory University before going on to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He formerly taught at Texas A&M University and Purdue University before joining MSU, where he now teaches and does research on ethical and philosophical questions dealing with agriculture and food and especially the development of agricultural techno-science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nita A. Farahany</span> American academic

Nita A. Farahany is an Iranian American author and distinguished professor and scholar on the ramifications of new technology on society, law, and ethics. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book, The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology. She currently teaches Law and philosophy at Duke University where she is the Robinson O. Everett Distinguished Professor of Law & Philosophy at Duke Law School, the founding director of the Duke Initiative for Science and Society as well as a chair of the Bioethics and Science Policy MA program. She is active on many committees, councils, and other groups within the law, emerging technology, and bioethics communities with a focus on technologies that have increasing potential to have ethical and legal issues. In 2010 she was appointed by President Obama to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.

References

  1. Michigan State University/philosophy/Fred Gifford/CV Archived 2011-08-24 at the Wayback Machine accessed May 30, (2011)
  2. Michigan State University/philosophy/Fred Gifford/CV Archived 2011-08-24 at the Wayback Machine accessed May 30, (2011)
  3. Gifford, Fred and Ana Rodriguez, “Bioethics in Costa Rica: Origins and Challenges”, in Catherine Myser, ed., The Social Functions of Bioethics Around the Globe, Oxford University Press (2010)
  4. Gifford, Fred. "Ethics of Research: Protection of Human Subjects," in the Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, http://www.els.net Archived 2011-05-13 at the Wayback Machine , London: Nature Publishing Group, Macmillan Reference Limited. (2008)
  5. Fred Gifford. Co-editor with Stephen L. Esquith of Capabilities, Power, and Institutions: Towards a More Critical Development Ethics. The Pennsylvania State University Press, (2010)