Lord Sumption and the Values of Life, Liberty, and Security:Before and Since the COVID-19 Outbreak

Lord Sumption, a former Justice of the Supreme Court, has been a prominent critic of coronavirus restrictions regulations in the UK. Since the start of the pandemic, he has consistently questioned both the policy aims and the regulatory methods of the Westminster government. He has also challenged rationales that hold that all lives are of equal value. In this paper, I explore and question Lord Sumption’s views on morality, politics and law, querying the coherence of his broad philosophy and his arguments regarding coronavirus regulations with his judicial decision in the assisted-dying case of R (Nicklinson) v Ministry of Justice. In Nicklinson, Lord Sumption argued for restrictions on liberty given the priority of the sanctity of life principle and the protection of others who may be vulnerable, as well as for deference to policy-making institutions in instances of values-based disagreement. The apparent inconsistencies in his positions, I argue, are not clearly reconcilable, and invite critical analysis of his impacts on health law and policy

Confrontations in "genethics": Rationalities, challenges, and methodological responses

It was only a matter of time before the portmanteau term “genethics” would be coined and a whole field within bioethics delineated. The term can be dated back at least to 1984 and the work of James Nagle, who claims credit for inventing the word, which he takes “to incorporate the various ethical implications and dilemmas generated by genetic engineering with the technologies and applications that directly or indirectly affect the human species.” In Nagle’s phrase, “Genethic issues are instances where medical genetics and biotechnology generate ethical problems that warrant societal deliberation.” The great promises and terrific threats of developments in scientific understanding of genetics, and the power to enhance, modify, or profit from the knowledge science breeds, naturally offer a huge range of issues to vex moral philosophers and social theorists. Issues as diverse as embryo selection and the quest for immortality continue to tax analysts, who offer reasons as varied as the matters that might be dubbed “genethical” for or against the morality of things that are actually possible, logically possible, and even just tenuously probable science fictio

Depression and Public Health Law:Ethics, Governance, and the Socio-Political Determinants of Health and Well-being

This chapter examines arguments for framing and approaching depression as a public health question, paying attention to legal, regulatory, and practical issues. A public health approach focuses on effecting positive health changes through methods of socially coordinated, population-level intervention. Public health agendas aim to prevent or mitigate the incidence of ill health in the first place to promote broader concepts of well-being. This chapter explains a public mental health law approach to depression by addressing two sets of questions: why we would wish to take a public health approach and how we go about it. It presents and expands on a dominant understanding of public health before turning to a broad characterization of public health law, and considering some practicalities of taking a public health approach. It concludes with a discussion of why depression is apt to be framed and addressed as a matter for public health law.</p